Published: January 9, 2003

By T.L. Petersen

Observer Staff Writer

The black-and-white cars of the Oregon State Police may become a much more rare sight if voters reject Ballot Measure 28 later this month.

Especially in Northeastern Oregon, where the OSP faces the possible loss of six officers.

State law enforcement, and some local law enforcement by ripple effect, could see a reduction in services as state budgets continue to look for places to reduce costs.

The primary, and most visible cuts locally would be to the Oregon State Police, both to the number of troopers and to services provided, law enforcement officials say.

Without the results of the Jan. 28 vote, estimates of what the cuts will be is a supposition. But Lt. Reg Madsen, station commander for the Oregon State Police in La Grande, said plans are being made should voters not pass the three-year tax increase.

"One hundred and thirty-six pink slips are being prepared" to send out statewide to OSP troopers if budget cutting continues, Madsen said.

Those termination notices, he said, would be based on length of employment, with the newest troopers being dismissed first.

The problem locally is that Union and Wallowa counties have several of those newer OSP hires.

According to Madsen, Union County's La Grande patrol office would lose two patrol officers, reducing its staff from eight to six.

"But the big problem is in Wallowa County," Madsen said.

Two troopers would be lost from the Wallowa County OSP office, and two of the three troopers assigned to fish and game patrols would be lost.

The cuts would leave Madsen and citizens with only two OSP officers assigned to all of Wallowa County.

Madsen said staff reductions would have a direct effect on regional law enforcement — "troopers will be working without backup in places like North Powder and Elgin," he said.

And lack of troopers would make many of the support duties the state police currently offer to other law enforcement agencies — local police and deputies —difficult if not impossible to provide.

These support duties include investigative services, and involvement on narcotics task forces, involvement on sex crime task forces and other established cooperative crime prevention or reduction groups.

The OSP's Pendleton crime lab is already gone, and crime lab services in Ontario also are being reduced.

Madsen reported earlier that the Oregon State Police had 655 troopers on the state's highways in 1980. Cuts have already reduced that number to around 380.

The potential loss of another 136, he said, "is just the opposite of what it should be," especially with the steady increase each year of traffic on every interstate.

"We just have to ride this out," Madsen said.

County jail would feel impact, too

While the loss of Oregon State Police troopers would be visible and direct to motorists and those dealing with crimes in Union and Wallowa counties, state budget woes could affect Union County law enforcement in a less direct way as well.

The Union County jail receives money each year through the Department of Corrections, under public law 1145, to house inmates serving the last year of their prison sentences. "For us, that's been a good and positive thing," Union County Undersheriff Dana Wright said.

The 1145 money has paid for jail programming for inmates and has supported the house-arrest program.

Carefully noting that potential cuts in the 1145 money are "all just rumor" at this point, Wright said funding for state prison inmates held locally could be reduced by $37,000, an amount that could — if it is lost — mean more inmates released earlier into the community.

Another ripple effect of state cuts, Wright said, could be that if county deputies are needed to be called out to handle calls that the OSP are now handling, those responses will be handled as overtime hours — money that comes from county funding and that could force the sheriff's department to run out of money faster than at present.

"We could have to prioritize deputies' duties," Wright said. And that situation, he said, would be "very user unfriendly."

Again noting that projected changes are all simply estimates and "what-ifs" at this time, Wright said that county law enforcement "will survive. It all depends on the priorities of the community."

And at the jail, plans are also being made for changes if state courts are forced to make drastic budget cuts resulting in loss of services.

"We process 2,000 people in and out of the jail per year," Wright said.

If county courts cut back their work days, or delay processing some misdemeanor charges, more people arrested could be released.

"At least 50 percent" of those taken to jail are charged with misdemeanors, Wright said. And those charges will be those affected by changes in the courts.

Wright, as jail manager, is waiting to see what happens with Measure 28.

"Nobody has the answer to the problems," he says.

But like Lt. Madsen at the La Grande OSP office, Wright is staying as optimistic as possible.

"We can handle anything they (the state budget cutters) throw at us — to a certain level."