According to officials, Josephine County Jail faces the real threat of closing. This after the Law Enforcement levy failed to pass.
NBC 5’s Jennifer Elliott brings us more on what the county faces following the results of the special election.
The majority has spoken: by 539 votes Measure 17-49 was shot down.
Now, officials are looking at an already stretched budget, trying to find ways to make it stretch even further.
“12 13 14….” Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson ticks off the number of calls-for-help he gets each day, that he says just can’t respond to.
“Right now I have 20 calls waiting for response, we average between 20-30 calls a day.”
Today, Measure 17-49 is dead. The law enforcement levy would have added a $1.48 per $1000 assessed value to county property taxes, essentially meaning $222 more a year for a home valued at $150,000. It would have generated an extra 9.1 million in revenue.
“We go down to one patrol deputy it’s going to get a whole lot worse,” says Gilbertson.
Currently the Sheriff’s office runs on three patrol deputies, 2 people in court security and 100 jail beds, but Gilbertson tells us now:
Cut down to one patrol deputy, one person in court security and face the “real possibility of closing the jail.”
Today, during a budget committee meeting the Sheriff’s Department asked commissioners for 649 thousand to fill the gap and keep things status quo.
County Commissioner Keith Heck’s response prior to the meeting wasn’t optimistic:
“When there are no moneys, the reality is there are no moneys,” He continues, “The only thing that has to be funded is the sheriff, you don’t have to have a jail here. You can rent a bed in the Jackson County Jail and call it our jail.”
Troubling news for Josephine County’s Sheriff, “We’re facing a crime dilemma.”
For now, he says they’ll just have to make do and move forward.
The situation has become so well known, that Gilbertson tells us the BBC interviewed him this morning about his part in the county’s fiscal dilemma.
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