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[0:00]
[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.
[1:20]
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.
[1:42]
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.
[2:11]
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.
[2:59]
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.
[3:30]
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.
[4:05]
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.
[5:15]
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?
[5:44]
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]