Coos County Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean, the man in charge of our public money and resources has filed Chapter 13. According to the Register Guard, Stufflebean blames the recall, his ex-wife and the exorbitant costs associated with being a public official.

His wife lost her job a few years back, Stufflebean said. When he became commissioner two years ago, he said, he took a $28,000 annual pay cut. Stufflebean makes about $59,000 a year now.

Campaigning against the May 5 recall election also cost him a significant amount of money personally, Stufflebean said.

Until recently, he also was paying for on-the-job expenses out of pocket, as the board of commissioners was trying to keep its expenses down.

“I took about a $3,000 per month loss in revenue,” Stufflebean said.

Another hit came from legal fees when the mother of Stufflebean’s son filed to gain custody of the boy, he said.

A check on OreSTAR would confirm whether Stufflebean spent his own money fighting the recall although if he did he did not report it from what I can see.

It should be possible to confirm the salary drop as well. Unconfirmed sources have told me in the past Stufflebean was in such deep financial trouble he had to buy a big screen television at ‘Rent to Own’.