In the face of more public criticism over budget cuts at the sheriff’s office, Curry County commissioners agreed to place another law enforcement tax levy before voters next May.
But they took umbrage at some of the statements citizens lobbed at them on Thursday, including accusations from local Teamsters representatives that they abandoned the sheriff’s office.
That statement came from Rod Palmquist, labor representative of Local Teamsters 223, which represents Curry County Sheriff’s Office employees. Palmquist criticized a proposed employment contract between the county and Finance and Human Resources Director Keina Wolf, charging commissioners of prioritizing bureaucracy over public safety. He mentioned a potential consideration to consolidate jail services between Curry and Coos counties — an issue that’s in the early stages of exploration at this point, according to Commissioner Jay Trost.
Palmquist also referred to a decision the Board of Commissioners made in June to allocate roughly $1.8 million in interest from Road Department Reserves to the sheriff’s office instead of “tapping into the more than $12 million, which is available to you.”
“You treat this money like an endowment when it could be used directly to support public safety,” Palmquist said. “To make matters worse, you’ve threatened to end even those interest payments to the sheriff’s office in early 2025. This is not leadership, this is abandonment.”
In a written statement on Dec. 9, Palmquist and his colleague Austin DePaolo, principal officer of Teamsters Local 223, urged commissioners to place the law enforcement tax levy on the May 2025 ballot. They also called on the Board to fully fund the sheriff’s office, “cease wasting resources on outside law firms and harassment of sheriff’s officer personnel”, and to cease any “overreach into the sheriff’s authority”
The Curry County Board of Commissioners on Thursday unanimously authorized their county counsel to complete the Request for Ballot Title form for the proposed law enforcement levy and submit it to County Clerk Shelley Denney before the Feb. 28, 2025 deadline.
According to Commissioner Brad Alcorn, that submission is necessary for the group of Curry County citizens proposing the levy to create an account with the Oregon Secretary of State.
Alcorn told his colleagues that he had spoken with former commissioner Christopher Paasch, who had pitched the idea for another levy in November.
“Chris told me they had about $15,000 in cash that they were ready to deposit and there was some urgency to get it done,” Alcorn said. “And, despite the confrontational interaction about this, I know that we need more money and I think it’s the right thing to do despite any personal differences, to give the people the opportunity to make that decision.”
If the levy is approved, property owners would be taxed $1.12 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The levy is estimated to raise about $4.28 million annually and would pay for five more patrol deputies, one sergeant, two dispatchers and would allocate $122,605 towards the Curry County Sheriff’s Marine Division and Search & Rescue.
According to Trost, who read out the measure’s proposed language, the levy would replace the $1.18 million in Road Department reserves the Board had allocated to the sheriff’s office as well as the $1.25 million that comes from the Curry County general fund. Out of those dollars, about $89,950 goes toward Search & Rescue, the Marine Division receives $36,635, and civil and criminal patrol receives $313,766.
County dispatch receives $818,887 out of the general fund allotment that’s allocated to the sheriff’s office, according to the tax levy’s proposed language.
If approved, the levy would also establish a five-member citizens oversight committee that will monitor how the tax dollars are being spent.
This new tax levy will go before voters about a year after they defeated a previous levy that would have funded 24/7 law enforcement. On Monday, Trost told Redwood Voice Community News that, in addition to being proposed by Curry County citizens, the current levy is asking for about half the amount the previous measure had asked for and is only focused on patrol and dispatch.
“I think it’s been identified as more of a [way] to maintain baseline services,” he said. “The previous one was what we considered fully-funded public safety, which would have been 24/7 patrol countywide. It was obviously larger in scope and service.”
The Board of Commissioners had also worked with the Curry County Sheriff’s Office on the May 2024 levy, which would have taxed property owners a $2.23 per $1,000 of assessed value, according to Trost.
On Thursday, before the Board took up the issue of the current levy, a group of residents calling themselves Citizens for Curry Justice lambasted commissioners over a proposed employment agreement between the county and Wolf as HR and finance director.
Michele Martin, one group member, valued Wolf’s proposed contract at $800,000, which includes a minimum salary of $130,000 a year and a 3.2 percent cost of living adjustment each year. They also criticized the $15,000 budget Wolf’s department is receiving for professional development.
“Even though they are all from Brookings, they haven’t learned from the mistakes that were made in the Janell Howard incident,” Martin said, referring to the former Brookings city manager whose job was terminated several months after she was caught shoplifting from the Brookings’ Fred Meyer store in July 2022.
Palmquist also criticized the proposed contract between the county and Wolf. According to him, the $15,000 training budget for Wolf is more than the training budget for the entire sheriff’s office. “Our deputies who investigate homicides, infant deaths and the like have to raise their own grant funds to pay for needed certificates,” he said, “while you are paying $15,000 for a director-level position who should already have been trained to do their job in the first place.”
Georgia Cockerham, who is on the committee behind the current proposed levy, accused commissioners of making changes to it at the 11th hour. She asked for copies of tax levy language, pointing out that she and other committee members will have to put in the work with voters to get it approved.
“There are a lot of people that have been very wary about this, figuring you’re going to sabotage it one way or the other,” she said.
During public comment, Cockerham accused commissioners of dismantling the sheriff’s office, including demanding access to computers and giving away cars. She also criticized a workshop Curry County and Coos County commissioners held on Friday to discuss whether consolidating jail services between the two communities was feasible.
Cockerham also criticized Alcorn’s background as a Fresno Police detective, saying that it’s on him to convince citizens of his expertise in public safety.
“For the benefit of the citizens of this county, I’m asking you to please describe the credentials that establish you as a law enforcement expert,” Cockerham said. “Not just in the tactical areas of patrol or SWAT, but rather in the strategic big picture beyond officer or deputy detective work.”
In response, Oregon State Senator David Brock Smith, whose district includes Curry County, accused the Teamsters union of arrogance. In addition to being a former Curry County commissioner, Brock Smith said he’s also been a member of the Oregon State Legislators’ Public Safety Committee and the co-chair Council of State Governments West Public Safety Committee.
Brock Smith said he helped pass legislation that allows Curry County and six other rural counties to tap into their Road Department Reserves to pay for sheriff’s deputies. Back then, he said, there was $42 million in Curry’s Road Department Reserves.
Trost also pushed back against the Teamsters Union’s statement. The $15,000 for training is for both the Human Resources and Finance departments, he said. The sheriff’s training budget is $34,250, Trost said.
“If you included K9, which has been over the last few years, that’s an additional $26,668,” he said. “The total training budget for the last few years for the sheriff has been $60,318 per annum. That’s not including travel.”
Trost also addressed the use of Road Department Reserves for the sheriff’s office, stating that since 2013, about $18 million had been allocated to the department. Public safety has also been supported through $5 million in one-time funds, he said.
Trost also spoke to a “well-publicized” struggle between the road department and the sheriff’s office over those reserve dollars.Back in 2017, the Road Department budget was about $6 million and Curry County had the revenues to offset those expenses. Then funding requests from the Road Department began to increase, as did requests from public safety, Trost said. Those requests went from $6 million on average to $8 million from Roads and then increased from $10 million to $11 million before dropping back down to $10 million.
“At the same time, the needs in public safety were also rising to a point where one year, there was over $7 million taken out of the road fund in one year and it was averaging at just over $5 [million] for several years,” Trost said. “Had that trend continued, we would be 100 percent — as somebody said in here — bankrupt in just over two years if we continued to take upwards of $7 million between roads and public safety out of the road fund reserve. So obviously that couldn’t continue.”
Alcorn spoke to the “nastiness” he said he saw on the Citizens for Curry Justice Facebook page. He noted that Curry County residents supporting the sheriff’s office want a levy passed and asked why they were so confrontational.
“What value does that add?” Alcorn asked. “How does that move anything forward toward a solution that we desperately need in this county, which is funding? How does that help?”
