>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

The City of La Grande budget committee approved the 2008-2009 budget by a unanimous vote Tuesday night, but that doesn’t mean everybody was happy about it.

The committee reluctantly accepted proposals to eliminate two public safety positions, including a police officer and the fire department’s Fire Protection Officer. The decision was made after extensive and sometimes contentious debate.

“I have a problem increasing the Urban Forestry budget by $18,000 at the same time we’re cutting public safety,” Budget Committee Chair Dana Wright said at one point.

The total budget, which will be passed on to the city council for final approval in June, is for $36.2 million. That includes $9.7 million in the general fund for 2008, and $9.1 million for 2009.

City Manager Robert Strope said reduction in services is necessary because of revenue shortfalls. The public safety cuts will save the city about $137,000.

The elimination of the police officer position was especially hard to swallow for Councilor Gary Lillard. Lillard said he finds it upsetting that staffing on the Union-Wallowa County Drug Task Force might be reduced.

“If (the cut) is from the drug task force, it will have a big impact on the community,” Lillard said.

The task force does drug investigations in the two-county area. Until last year it was staffed by the City of La Grande, the Union County Sheriff’s Office, the Oregon State Police and the Enterprise Police Department in Wallowa County.

The Union County Sheriff’s Office pulled its deputies from the task force in a dispute over staffing. The OSP pulled out because of a lack of available troopers.

That left two La Grande police officers, plus a Wallowa County officer.

Then last month, one of the La Grande officers, Tom Blackman, resigned his position. In formulating the budget, the police department decided not to replace him.

Presently, La Grande contributes one full-time and one part-time officer to the task force, according to a report from Lt. Derick Reddington.

Lillard doesn’t think that is enough.

“Last year, we funded the position to beef up the task force. It makes no sense to me to go backwards given the community’s problems with drugs,” he said.

Others argued that the reduction merely restores previous staffing levels.

“This is a position we funded last year, and if we don’t fund it now there’s not much change in public safety. We just go back to where we were last year,” said City Councilor Steve Clements.

Reddington told the committee no decision has been made on where to make the reduction in staff. He said the cut could show up in patrol, drug enforcement or criminal investigation.

Strope said the committee’s concerns about drug enforcement will play a prominent role in police staffing discussions coming up.

The budget committee spent considerable time looking at ways to come up with money that might be used to restore public safety staffing in the future.

The Urban Forestry program and funds for Union County Tourism and the Union County Economic Development Corporation all got a look.

In the end, the committee decided to go with the budget as presented.