Jackson County: Gov. Brown not giving 'our fair share' of CARES Act funding

County officials say that Governor Brown has not made any move to disburse millions in CARES Act funding to local governments.

Oregaccording to the counties, oregon got more than one and a half billion dollars from the cares act for local relief efforts.

They claim that local funding has only gone to portland, multnomah, and washington counties.

I spoke with commissioner colleen roberts today about the need for the funding in jacskon county.

What kind of financial support do you get from the state and what would that mean as it relates to the cares act?

Well, the care's funding, um, as it came through the federal government, i think president trump's administration has been very generous in helping fund businesses and the unemployed and the citizenry, but also funding local government.

And our state received like one point $6 billion in this care funding to, um.

Initially it was to help all municipalities and local government and county government.

When we questioned that, when we met with governor brown a week ago, monday, um, she, uh, proclaimed it was only going to be for counties over 500,000 in population, which kept the money all in multnomah county, washington county and portland.

Um.

They're there with their funding formula.

What we figured, if it was, you know, my close to $200 a person, it would have meant over $30 million to jackson county had the funding been distributed.

Uh, two local governments and jackson county isn't the only one that got left out.

It's all of our little small counties.

And, um, we've brought it to the attention of our state legislators, and they were most surprised it did not get distributed.

Um, we brought it to the attention of, uh, the staff of senator merkley and senator wyden.

I think they're trying to work on, um.

A fair funding fix where local government is compensated, you know, for like two months.

Like everybody, we've been delivering services and, um, redistributing our staff to, uh, meet the demands of that had been placed on the county.

So without any reimbursement.

So we would like to see that fair share, um, come to jackson county.

A $30 million, even if you got, it sounds like a lot of money, but my assumption would be that's not even all of the losses the county has experienced, at least so far.

And certainly if you add in the future losses you expect to get right.

Absolutely.

And i'm not sure the funding, i think there's real, um, strict requirements.

It can't be used maybe for losses, but it can be used for the services we're providing the testing and, um, and the, the.

Command center, the emergency operations we've established early on, which really, uh, bent the curve, flattened the curve right away, and i just think was beneficial to our county.

So we.

You know, our board's just striving to do the best for the citizens of jackson county.

We're striving to get our county open and um, we're just leaving no stone unturned and this was one of them.

If you don't get that money and you can't reimburse the losses of artery incurred, how do you balance a budget?

Will there be cutbacks?

Will there be layoffs?

What, what is the worst case scenario for jackson county?

If that money and other money doesn't arrive.

Well, we, uh, we just passed, had our budget hearings, and we said, we may have to meet again.

We'll address the needs as they come to us.

Our budget is very stable.

Uh, today.

Uh, we have ample in our reserves to meet the demand, um, because of the financial, um, progress of our county staff.

And i just think, um, we're sitting in good position, but we're, we're being careful of every year.

Bit of money that the citizens are trust to us.

And if there is money intended to come help meet the demands of this corona virus, uh, pandemic that, uh, we will push to see that, that that is distributed equitably.

Jackson county commissioner, colleen roberts.

Thanks for much for being with us today.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you for