Charges that the prior County Board of Commissioners deliberately obscured the reorganization of the Coos County Road Department from the general public have not abated since the New Year’s Eve layoff of twenty-road workers. Done before Commissioner Bob Main took office, he was denied the opportunity to vote but has still had to live with the consequences. The timing of the decision further fueled claims the Board acted with a deliberate lack of transparency.

Citizens claim the bare minimum notice was given and even that was written in code and further used unapproved budget. Testimony about possible serious impacts to public safety was given week after week at the weekly BOC meetings.

Citizens questioned the impromptu budget projections, prepared without public input, used to justify the work force reduction and asked questions and pointed out perceived discrepancies and anomalies in the prepared figures to the Board. Main moved twice to reconsider the reorganization to allow the public to have input in the process and was overruled each time by Whitty and Stufflebean.

A December 31, 2008 press release explaining the road department reorganization includes a five-year revenue projection. The projection, prepared by Commissioner Stufflebean, shows a beginning balance of $3,500,000 for 2009-10, a half million less than the previous year. However, current budget work sheets indicate a proposed beginning balance of $5,867,497 or $2.3 million more than the New Year’s Eve projection.

The New Year’s Eve projection indicated $9, 749,761 total revenue for 2009-10 when the current budget work sheets indicate a $13,974,270 total revenue. The first projection would indicate a shortfall of approximately a million dollars from the previous year while the current work sheets indicate an increase of almost $4 million, a net difference of $5 million.

Although a budget shortfall has not been reconciled to explain the 11th hour layoffs, in February, a previously undisclosed reason for the road department reorganization may have been revealed. During a meeting with ORC regarding mineral leases for chromite mining Stufflebean advised the recent reorganization provided him with funds to make $450,000 of improvements to W Beaver Hill Road to support future mining activities.

“One of the reasons it was essential we do some of those is everybody who has read the URS report that was provided by Oregon Resources Corporation, Coos County needed to make a $450,000 investment of their share just to deal with maintenance of the road department itself on W Beaver Hill. With the changes we made that was factored into that. We will now have the money to actually make that investment.”

The URS report cited above relates to Condition 13 of a conditional use permit allowing ORC to conduct mining operations. Condition 13 possibly commits the County to a proportional share of the cost of upgrading W Beaver Hill Road to an industrial grade road.

In March, testimony to the Board claiming the remaining road crew were not adequate to maintain 600 miles of county road were ignited when an 88 year-old man in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease drowned on Fishtrap Road. Roadmaster John Rowe has not explained why barriers were not in place.

Also at issue are the $2.8 million in maintenance costs attributed to the road department equipment listed within the press release for the period December ’04 to November ’08. Members of the public began filing requests for public records that included obtaining details about the maintenance of specific pieces of equipment.

Evidence from these public records indicates some of the costs may have been inflated. One example, a three year-old brush cutter, showed maintenance costs totaling almost $80,000. Review of the records indicates some costs were attachments and upgrades and more than $36,000 was lease payments, a capital outlay not a maintenance cost.

Current budget work sheets do not break out year-to-date equipment maintenance costs. Nor is it clear where the $367,526 projected buyout and layoff costs to date are allocated. An adjusted budget line item entitled ‘OTHER EXPENSE’ totaling $1,000,000 with a $549,427 year-to-date actual cost may include maintenance and buyout costs.

A spreadsheet used in support of the layoffs depicting the last ten years of operation indicated the road department had operated in the red eight of those years. Former roadmaster, Larry Van Elsberg ran the department seven of those years and noted that the department had always had a balanced budget. County governments do not have the luxury of running in the red as the federal government does.

Other department budgets have been under scrutiny including the Sheriff’s Department and the IT Department. The 2006-07, budget allocates $2,868,091 to the Sheriff’s Criminal Division and only $192,635 to information technology. By the 2008-09, budget year the amounts were $1,997,922 and $1,417,441 respectively.

Stufflebean is liaison to both the road and information technology departments. After Van Elsberg resigned as roadmaster in April of 2007, the Board approved appointing Stufflebean as interim roadmaster. Similarly, Stufflebean became interim department head of IT while still continuing as board liaison. In January, this year, he was replaced when both positions were filled.

To date the Board has taken no action to explain or investigate the discrepancies in the road department budget or address concerns about adequate staffing despite repeated public testimony. According to the recall committee, Citizens for Fair and Open Government, the Board’s inaction and a perceived trend away from public safety necessitated the recall effort.