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[Upbeat intro jingle]
NARRATOR: Jackson County Today:

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Hot topics, relevant stories, and news

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developments that affect our community.

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[Upbeat orchestral music]
NARRATOR: How does the Jackson County

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budget get decided each year? Each county
department develops its own recommended

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budget. In public meetings held in late
March, department heads meet with the

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administrator, commissioners, and budget
committee members to discuss their

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proposed fiscal year budgets. Then, in
mid-April, departments present their

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recommended budgets to the budget
committee at public hearings held in the

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Jackson County Courthouse Auditorium. The
2026 to '27 public hearings provided

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detailed insight into and understanding of
the services being provided to the

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citizens of Jackson County.

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DEPUTY FINANCE DIRECTOR MICHELLE WICKHAM:
The finance department has three programs.

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It's made up of the taxation office,

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accounting, and treasury. The taxation
office is mainly responsible for the

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collection and the distribution of
property taxes. The accounting program

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provides financial reporting, general
ledger, accounts payable, and payroll

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services to county departments, and the
treasury program manages the cash and

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investments of the county as well as
distributing the revenues for our taxes to

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the taxing districts and ensuring on-time
payment of our debt service payments.

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The finance department continues to have
strong performance indicators. Our payroll

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has a very high accuracy rate. We
continue to receive clean and unmodified

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opinions on our audits,

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and we are increasing our electronic tax
payments and our availability of online

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statements, which will improve more of our
efficiency and reduce our costs.

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COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR DANNY JORDAN:
Can I just add one thing? It kind of got

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glossed over real quickly that we're a

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Triple Crown winner. There are literally
only 2.5% of all local governments in the

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entire United States. The last that they
published in '23, there were only, uh, 11

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local governments in the, in the state of
Oregon and only two counties, and none

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that have won it consecutively as often as
our county. So I just want you all to know,

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and Shannon and her staff deserve the
praise for that.

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SENIOR DEPUTY ADNIMISTRATOR SHANNON BELL:
So you can see that our portfolio is well

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diversified with the majority of it being

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in agency papers, paper of the United
States. Our total portfolio is just over

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$400 million.

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And then we also carry a high, um, quality
credit. Um, most of our paper is AAA or AA+.

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COUNTY ASSESSOR ANGELA STUHR:
I'm gonna give first a brief overview of

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the duties of my office. So generally, we

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place the real market value and the
maximum assessed value for all property in

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the county. That's over 101,000 property
accounts.

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We maintain the ownership boundary map and
acreage data for all of those properties.

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That's all in the effort to properly levy,
uh, taxes on behalf of 41 tax districts.

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You'll notice on the graph that there was
a large jump, uh, in the 2025 tax year,

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and that represented reappraisal projects
that we took on. Um, we also, as a part of

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that, um, reappraisal project, we
identified quite a bit of omitted property

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throughout the county, and that's just
based on very few inspections. So I expect

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that if we can maintain a reappraisal
pro- uh, program like this, we will be

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able to clean up, um, and, and collect on
behalf of the districts that we serve.

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There were taxable changes that are, uh,
that I expect for the 2026 year. House

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Bill 3940 passed in the 2025 legislative
session, and it requires a change in the

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number of acres being collected on behalf
of the rural fire protection districts.

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We have to allocate value to each of the
acres, and then, uh, the maximum assessed

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value or specially assessed value for
those acres then is collected f- on behalf

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of those districts. The net result is
that I expect that 8,000 property,

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uh, accounts will receive an increase on
their tax statements this year.

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COUNTY CLERK CHRIS WALKER:
The County Clerk's office is anticipating

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revenue in the amount of

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$1,868,920

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and expending $1,918,044,

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uh, to meet our budget target,

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uh, during the 2026,

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uh, '27 budget year on behalf of the
clerk's Administrative Elections Recording

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and Property Values Appeals Board
program.

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The majority of clerk's office revenues
are obtained through recording fees,

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marriage licensing fees, document sales,
and special election reimbursements.

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We do not get reimbursed for primary and
general elections.

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We completed a risk and vulnerability
assessment of the elections program

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through the Oregon Titan Fusion Center and
the Oregon Department of Justice with

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support from the Secretary of State. We
had our protective security advisors that

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were assigned to our area and the State of
Oregon come in and help us, um, determine

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some of the vulnerabilities, um, and then
we went on a, um,

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process to try and correct some of those
vun- vulnerabilities.

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BUDGET COMMITTEE CHAIR CRAIG MORRIS:
The president issued an executive order

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eliminating mail-in ballots.

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Um, I know the State of Oregon has filed a
lawsuit

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to overturn that. Um, where, where are

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you at, um, in terms of the potential
that this may go into effect, and do we

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have any sense of, um, the impact it's
going to have on your organization if we

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do have to eliminate mail-in ballots and
the cost of that?

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WALKER: From my understanding,
the Constitution of

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the United States gives the states sole

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authority over time, place, and manner of
elections. That being said,

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um, we are working very closely with the
Secretary of State's office as well as to

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our Oregon Association of County Clerks.

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At this point, we have no changes to our
process, so I want to pass that on to our

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voters that we are continuing as we always
have for the May 2026 primary election.

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[Upbeat outro jingle]