Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Are we ready? Welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's June 15th, 2026 Board of County Commissioners meeting. We will now call the meeting to order and the first item on our agenda is review and approval of the agenda. Are there any requests for

one question so the fee schedule was talked about last wednesday and i haven't seen another end note or i'd like to see it's not going to wednesday it is on wednesday actually part of it okay that was my question generalized other than that i'll move approval a second we've been secondly that you have their step on let's see uh well yes yes and chair votes yes okay um

from Don Dunham. And Mr. Dunham, if you'd like to join us, please come on up. You can join us for public comment. Oh, okay. Give me a moment to get my act together. If there's anyone else online who's interested in providing public comment, please raise your virtual hand. Sorry.

Really not that bad.

My turn? Yes. Okay. Well, I'm here about, I live in the South County. My name is Dan Dettel. I live just off Vandenberg Road, south of Vandenberg Road. I'm here to talk about this big blue box that got delivered yesterday. We came home from church to discover that box. And if you look at that photo, it's in the photo in the very top part of it. You can barely see it. And the reason I took that is I have to take it from there where I took the photo, which is Old Wood Road. I can't do it. I actually, I don't know how I got it back there. But if it has any weight at all, I can't do it. I'm handicapped, doubly, although this I hope comes off tomorrow. I simply can't do it. I'm 88 years old, among Social Security and pension. And Republic wants to raise my rate $6 a month for the can that I don't need. They will not. Take bottles. They will not take glass. So I have to take glass to the transfer station in Lapine. I might as well take everything else. I've got it there and I've done it every two months since I've lived in South County, which is about 20 years. So Republic said, well, we'll do it for you. But we'll charge you a total of $98 a month. Now, that figure may be off, but I did hear $98. And even now, they've raised my rate, so it's $56 every two months. It had been $44. Boom, jumped out. The boxes are huge. If you look at the other photographs that I gave you there, please, they'll show me standing beside the box. And my wife of 66 years standing beside the box. And you see how big they are. I can't handle it. And my brother-in-law has helped me, but he has neck surgery on Wednesday. And he's not going to be able to help me. I have no help. And I have no financial help. And that's a big thing. And I seem to be the only one complaining about it. Oh, you're not. And I don't like to gripe. But you know, I have worked 37 years at Tektronix and six years in the army. And I've never asked for a little slack, but I am now. I need some help. Okay? I need help financially and physically. I can't handle that box if I use it. I don't need it. I can handle it. I can back my car up to the garage and do the cardboard. the bottles and glass myself slowly, but I can do it. And then I can dump them at the Lapine. I put them in a plastic bottle and toss them up in the platform because they don't do stairs and they have stairs down there. So that's why I'm here. I want a clean environment. And if you look at my land, it's clean. I'm fire wise. And I have adjacent to me 16 acres of common area, belongs to all the homeowners. And I'm the one that's been taking care of it because I have a small tractor. And once I get on the tractor, I can work. And I've been out there scooping up branches and stuff and piled them on the road. So and so I guess they're charging me for something I don't need. I don't want. And somebody is opposed upon them. And they say, we have to charge you. We have to charge you. The county says we have to do it because you've been.

I don't know about it. We can talk more. Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's that's like that. i'll just say that um i was contacted by another constituent who said who suggested could they possibly give us a smaller container because she she recycles but she doesn't produce that much recycling no um and uh that seemed like a a good suggestion to me and i i will at minimum pass that along to republic well i think you need to warn that because there's a financial i don't need it i can do it myself

So, yeah, this is public comment. We got what you're saying. We're getting it from a bunch of folks right now. We tried to do subscription only, and it bounced back from the DEQ and the state saying, no, if you're going to do it, you have to do it for everybody. We have some very enthusiastic people that want this really bad, and this is the byproduct of it. But let's keep communicating. There's things to dial in here with you. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for hearing me. Thank you.

Thank you for your service, by the way. And thanks for keeping your neighborhood so... Firewise. Thank you.

Okay. Brendan, are there any hands raised online?

There are no hands raised.

Okay. Now, move from citizen input to commissioner announcements. Are there any commissioner announcements?

Just the topic is that we've heard about about half a dozen times, talked to very specific people about it. Some people, once they know more facts, they're pretty comfortable with where we're at. Other people can't believe we've done this to them, but not a lot. We saw the enthusiasm a year ago when people wanted it. We tried to be the subscription service, and now this is where we got. I don't know if it's ever going to be an agenda item, but yeah, let's talk with solid waste. I was surprised how big the container is, too, because I have a small one and I don't work outside of the small one, but I think it's a monster. That is pretty big.

Jeff Merwin, our solid waste director, is listening. I asked him to tune in. He is. He said they're experiencing vocal feedback, some vocal feedback as well, so let's schedule for a follow-up discussion.

And the only other item, you know, Republic says, well, the county did it. It's like, well, yeah, we did do it, but there's a long history here. We tried to do subscription service. Recycling modernization is happening. Producer responsibility. They're trying to close the loop on it. So we're, yes, the county did it, but we're kind of right in the middle of a whole big thing that's happening here.

Yes. When I got my card, I thought this is ridiculous because we go right by. We drop it off for sales. So, yeah, like, and then. Actually, I was told by Tim Brunel that you could actually get a break. And so I told some people I talked to, please call up, ask them for a break. And they're saying, oh, no, there's no break. Because a lot of people that are using it are on fixed income. They can't afford another $6. So anyway, yeah, we need to hear from Jeff, please. Sooner rather than later.

It'd be great to have Jeff walk us through. it would be helpful to have kind of comprehensive information, like an explanation of what's happening, why it's happening, why it happens this way, so that we can just send out to people or point people to.

We'll get through it. Obviously, there's very enthusiastic people that are just loving this opportunity, but some people are very shocked by it also.

Well, then there's the other side that really doesn't need it, doesn't want it. And why are they being stuck with it?

It is a very large indeed. Any other commissioner announcements?

I think we had the perfect weather ever for the Sisters Rodeo. I will add that was no snow. It was awesome. Like you can go to Sisters Rodeo and you can have all four seasons in three hours. But this year it was awesome. So thank you. They did a great job.

So I guess I don't have a feel for announcements as opposed to other items because I was kind of thinking, well, I'll just update at the end of the meeting. But yeah, Commissioner Chang and I ended up... there. Update about geothermal on Newberry and I know Jen Patterson was there asking about, yeah, a big picture of how CREA could be involved and help with future development possibilities.

Yeah, Jen was also doing some homework for us on SIPs and tax abatement through rural and rural enterprise. So I've been renewable energy development zones and other things. Actually had some good information from the CREA, the CREA membership, who are very expert. I'll just mention that I'm doing a Coffee with the Commissioner tomorrow in Tupelo. Also, there's going to be a for their new campus on Friday. I'm not going to be in town on Friday, but if anyone is and wants to attend, just want you to know about that. Anything else or additional announcements?

We did have the audit meeting from noon till 2.30, I think, on Friday. And it ended up that we're now going to go back to quarterly meetings for the audit committee. Team thought that would be fine.

Okay. Good. All right, we can move on to our action items on our agenda. Number one is the Community Development Department's Fiscal Year 26-27 Work Plan. Thanks, Peter. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Chang, members of the Commission, Peter Gutowski, Community Development Director, And before you today is an opportunity to consider the Community Development Department's fiscal year 26-27 work plan. The board conducted a public hearing on June 3rd. You have the written record open for a week. There were no additional comments provided during that open record period. So just want to point you to the memorandum that includes the work plan as well. There were some topics for consideration that Commissioner Chang introduced for the board's consideration, and then the rest of the memo identifies board decisions in terms of our priority discretionary projects, our coordination responsibilities, and other opportunities to amend county code. Unless there are questions of me, I would turn it back over to the Commission, looking for any input you want to provide that would build off the Planning Commission's recommendation. Of course, there's opportunities to revise the program or emphasize certain projects, but appreciate the opportunity to be here. And this is something that the Community Development Department does every year. So we've, again, utilized, I think, a robust process for opportunities for engagement and we're at a point where the board can consider acknowledging this work plan as we will turn the corner very soon into the fiscal year 27.

Well, I really appreciate you taking time to think about, you know, what have we done in the last 12 months, what we're going to do in the next 12 months. You know, think of those planning efforts, the community plans, Tumalo, Tarabang, really sisters country plans. Our plan itself, you know, where we want to be in 20 years, try to update that every 10 years. This is kind of our annual work plan. Big steps towards all the big picture items. So I really appreciate that. I think we started off that transportation was a discussion planning commission came up with targets. That was an email. Yeah, that fit in there somewhere. And as I say, for the county planning commission to take a look at transportation. You know, we've got transportation department, we have the cities, we have the state. So. What would that look like if there was a moment for the commission?

Yeah, the planning commission, as I characterize it in the recommendation on page two, it was a topic of conversation. I wouldn't say that a majority of the planning commission kind of fully embraced it, but there were topics about regional transportation. I think through the lens of in the event that there was a wildfire, a conflagration, how cities and counties with the State and Oregon Department of Transportation are coordinating on, you know, exit or evacuation routes and whatnot.

So that was the context, but to your question- So my vision is, you know, I mean, if a planning commission of Deschutes County, you know, the domain of rural land use, but obviously the county as a whole, I don't know that there's a deliverable task other than an education step to be taken maybe, because as I say, we have our transportation engineer, we have our road department, you know, if cities and state got involved or whatever, just said, oh, what are those big, big things that, you know, maybe a game changer here, you know, because people talk about bypasses around the cities or, you know, the big stuff. So yeah, I was just kind of trying to understand if there's a, as I say, I don't know that it would be a big delivery project, but it could be a topic for one or two meetings. That's how I would catch it.

I mean, I would also say that our roads department has their own plans. You know, they have a capital approval plan, they have a transportation safety action plan, etc., etc., and wants to get engaged in transportation planning, they go to those venues and provide their input there. I don't necessarily think. Maybe something like the road department comes and presents what's in those plans to the planning commission in one meeting. Sure, I could see that, but otherwise, transportation planning is transportation planning and it's happening somewhere else.

Well, and just your same conclusion is what I came to. It would be an interesting, you know, aspect of development for the planning commission to get up to speed. Oh, transportation system plan. They're doing their 10, 20-year horizon also. Safety action plan, which, you know, is the priority projects when it comes to if you have capital, you know, then what lever of the planning commission, but it sure could be an educational fault.

And of course, I'm sitting here with a couple contractors that are really disappointed in Goods County. And you were copied on the one email today. Yeah, that man is going to be out a whole bunch of money. And then the other one was told on Friday that he could come in this morning from 9 to 11 to meet with the septic department. And he's not here. And then they're saying, no, no, no, no. So they come in. So there's, honestly, customer service has got a lot of it. It's got to step up.

I'm certainly happy if you want to have this conversation now. I'm certainly willing to have it. There is, of course, other perspectives to share with you that will allow each of you, if you want to have this conversation now, to draw your own conclusions. I'm prepared to talk about that right now. So that's a different topic.

So it's a topic, but because I have two of them. And the one side, you know what? And maybe we should practice calling Marion County and seeing what the answer they're following and what are they, you know, because we need to be customer service. You know, evaluation goes up when people get things built.

Commissioner, I'm certainly happy to talk to you about this at the conclusion of this meeting. If the other two commissioners want to understand this, we can talk about it now. There are more than just those perspectives that I'm happy to get into the details of. CDD, of course, takes customer service very, very seriously. Again, it's to the pleasure of the board if you want to talk about how CDD is performing customer service in real time today or on Friday, or if that's better addressed.

Friday's up. Sure, if you want to.

I'd like to at least finish the discussion of the 26-27 work plan for B. Great.

I was just showing support for a meeting about transportation. You know, not much more. I think, you know, kind of the cream of that. Hey, if they have some stuff to share, they'll round out the big picture.

And present their plans to the planning commission. If they want to dig in any more, they can. Thanks.

There's a comment made passing about thousands of unauthorized ADUs in rural counties. And I just wrote it down thinking, thousands. I mean, as I say, it's kind of that catch 22 where if you acknowledge, oh yeah, there's thousands of thousands is a lot of them. I don't know if there's any way that, yeah. I don't know where that number comes from. It was just a passing comment.

We actually show up in the assessed values of many properties. So it's a little awkward that one arm of the county knows about these ADUs and the other That turns a bit of a blind eye, but I mean, that is one simple way of evaluating how many of these unauthorized ADUs there are.

And I just, it's a starting point for another conversation about code enforcement too. So as I say, high level, you know, it's like, what's going to be the pressure? That's, you know, slow escalating pressure on situations. Some of them are going all the way into, foreclosures and abatement that we're paying for, which is a shame, but just want to get grounded in the culture of what we're doing and why in these challenging times. Inflation, interest rates, rents, everything, and it's not quite getting better, but we want the sense of community here in Deschutes County, supporting each other. Yeah, so I could go down some paths there, but I guess there's no real action I did for planning commission on that topic. I was just

Yeah, I mean, since the county was the first county to adopt the provisions from state law to allow rural ADUs in certain zones based on certain development standards, approximately 50, 55 have been initiated and or approved. I can't speak for how the county assessor assesses the valuation of rural properties. We identify illegal second dwellings or illegal dwellings and our team addresses them as soon as we can with the resources that we have. But I would be, I'm not in a position to even guess how many illegal ADUs might be in Deschutes County. On a tangential note, I know Nick shared it with the Board of County Commissioners. The Board, about four to six weeks ago, respectfully asked for information to be put on the web as it pertains to all of these. We have a website pertaining to ADUs. So we use the resources we have to allow our customers and constituents to make informed decisions. We are open to other ideas. Obviously the last thing we want is for our constituents or our customers to assume that they can build a second dwelling without permits and, you know, without tapping into septic systems and whatnot. So we know it's an issue. We know that housing vulnerability exists in our community, but again, direction that the board may want to try to address this as proactively as we can. You know, I'll just offer with the

ADUs, it really comes down to the philosophy of code enforcement. If the board wanted to change it, that would be a board call. But the philosophy has been a complaint-driven approach. And when I started with the county probably 17 years ago, there was an interesting proactive element where we were looking at exempt, agricultural exempt buildings. And if people were parking their boats and all those kinds of things, which is then, packing those, taking photos, was doing because we had volunteers. They wanted to know what we were doing. But that was really the only thing we were going out to look for. And so we're not, the code enforcement or building inspectors, if they see something, then they'll turn it in. The same with the sheriff's office. They are across the county on a regular basis. And we had a great conversation maybe a decade ago, and they said, you know, we're going to start to turn some more in because we've been at that 70% of our Then let's do that. It was a coordinated effort, and they did, and the sheriff's office may still be one of the largest individual parties that submits court reports based on what they see in the rural county. And it leads to a lot of identification and resolutions to those. So if there... in the case with the assessor's office, for example. And it does happen. Somebody will say, well, gosh, I've had this for a long time. You've been assessing me on it. But the county came and looked at it. And I recall on some inspections, they have a kitchen, but it's not there now. And it looked like it just, and it's like, well, are you going to put a kitchen? Oh, no, we're not going to do that. Okay. Well, they leave at some point. It is installed, and that is actually what happens. The assessor's office probably sees it and assesses them for it. Well, if we wanted a more proactive process, we could launch that, but that's not something that the board has provided direction to the community development department to do. It would change the dynamics, but that's certainly a board call.

Well, it's a side effect. That's an outside-the-bounds issue, but it's the RVs that I'm seeing it. People are like, hey, my neighbor's got an RV. Oh, there's a second RV. And then all of a sudden there's five RVs and then a really bad situation. And it's kind of like it's a movie thing that's happening out there. And public lands are being abused. We just had a cleanup on Saturday and two RVs and a big boat, a huge boat. Somebody just tied it to a tree and pulled the trailer out and left the boat just because I guess they wanted the trailer or something. But it was just a disaster. So that's more that scenario. It's not, you know, somebody brought that out and pitched it like this. David, really, why aren't you getting more aggressive on it? So just bring it up these topics and I'm seeing it.

Thank you. Glad that we put up the proactive information about RV is kind of working in the whole, the whole complicated decision tree story as, um, you know, it's hard to, it is hard to enforce rules with people if they're not clear. So, you mentioned, I did, I said that, you know, I wanted a little bit more detail under a couple of these settings to work on the manufactured home park. And you had said that that would go into a more detailed plan somewhere. I didn't see that. But they confirmed that that was captured somewhere.

Correct. And I'm sorry if I misunderstood. I could have done it as an underline. And I certainly can if you want to continue this to another date. You are correct, Commissioner Chang. to the extent that there is support for revising the work plan, including some of the topics that you raised at the end of the public hearing on June 3rd, we will note them in the CDB road plan that pertains to, for example, the groundwater quality area of concern opportunities. That's my language. We would put them, I'd probably cross-reference that. I'd put them in the on-site wastewater division and maybe also mention it in planning just because there's coordination between the two. For the RV opportunities as it relates to urban growth boundaries or other housing opportunities, I would put that in planning. So when we've asked that you would identify areas in the tables in the memorandum and I wanted to underscore it would be in the work plan. And so those would be the sections I would explicitly note them. But I didn't do it in the work plan yet because I thought they were considerations. But I may have misunderstood your question.

Well, today, right now, it's the deliberation. Let's not manage to change something.

Yeah. And I could certainly, if it's helpful, if you want to see the language or for acknowledgement. I can certainly come back in another meeting in June if it's helpful. But I would want them to be noted in the work plan because it reflects the priorities of the Board of County Commissioners as those items become more Prominent or elevated, uh, based on a host of.

Circumstances well, um. And then, you know, I was also open that to the idea that there might be like some. Some much more detailed document than this. Where for that stuff is showing up, but, uh. I mean, if it's if we have the opportunity to put it right in the work plan. I would like to consider that and ask my fellow commissioners if they support those things.

Can I make one follow-up to the extent that there's interest there? the communities to discuss the groundwater quality concern areas in Southern Deschutes County. And the board recognized this in the work plan. Every year, CDD is producing an annual groundwater protection report. And so that could be another location as putting some momentum around that topic. So that's an opportunity to further accentuate you know, something that's in the work plan that then also ties into it and produces.

So, Peter, on page 27, you said that five appeals were filed, but you only list four. Do you think maybe we should add the fifth one?

Yeah, thanks for catching that. We certainly can. I didn't give it that was planning incorporated that. But yeah, absolutely. We should be we should be consistent with with that reference. So thank you for calling.

So that it's 24 bullet points for work plan projects 2627 on-site wastewater program groundwater protection program. So, Mr. Chang, you're talking about introducing SPLF 54 groundwater area concern I mean, I'm seeing a bullet point right there, just mentioning that stuff, you know, because this is a 12 month period of talking about starting to use the words, dropping it in there somehow a bullet point. You know, I don't know if that's the Yeah, I would suggest putting a bullet.

Like really do something about it. If you see, you would explore the opportunities provided under and So I think they'll love to pay for or an extension or creation of wastewater systems. Again, yeah, explore. Laura is the key to that.

Yeah.

Peter, do you know what the single family is? We have a little sugar. I was just wondering what that graph is going to look like on page 17.

We'll get to 17. We just received Sherry. Sherry, our senior manager, just produced that, so I can get that for you.

I know.

To your question, it was the fifth item that we can note was the comprehensive plan and the reconsideration was the one. So that's for our brief take there. Okay, let me... Quickly. There we go. Today, this is as of May. You were asking number of new home permits issued or received?

Issued is what this title is.

Issued is 373. Okay.

So this year is going better then?

Yeah, a year ago at the end of May for the fiscal year, we had 336. That's seven more than from the previous fiscal year. Since I mentioned new home applications received, we have 331 at the end of May. We had 317 last year.

Okay.

Yeah.

Good. The other one that I... Keep bringing up, that's more important to me, is under housing strategies to add more about manufactured home products. Specifically, this is better than I, but basically about the underlying zoning density restrictions. Either, and they're pursuing rule making,

So can you help me understand that? So you're referring to edge of the city again, correct? Outside. So RR10, MUA10. Yeah, the, the, the.

You're looking for some path. The key constraints that affect them. Adequate infrastructure. I guess you, you know, if you're, uh, you can't put in a significant land use like a manufactured home park and not have adequate water and wastewater. So that's a consideration that we need to solve for that somehow. But the other concern, which you want to build a manufactured home park in RR10 or MUA10, your density is tied to the underlying zone. So you have a 20-acre manufactured home park. You can only put two units, two manufactured homes in. And that is something, you know, I've had discussions with DLCE. I've had discussions. But of course, it sounds like DLCD, we could initiate a rulemaking.

Would it be outside of the city or urban growth expansion? Outside of the city. Inside the city you wouldn't have these problems because they don't have an RR10. But I mean your vision is to have to touch the edge of a city?

I think practically speaking the infrastructure needs basically are going to build a manufactured home park that's going to need a wastewater system. You probably, your best opportunities to do that are going to be next to an incorporated city tied to their wastewater system. So it doesn't have to be next to a city. It doesn't have to be, but it does need to have adequate infrastructure. I do think that when you start talking about eliminating these densities, these density restrictions that if you said to people that the growth boundary is where you get this essentially a density bonus, then it would experience a lot less resistance from other parties.

I don't understand why it's something that you're interested in. I'm not Not my thing. I don't understand. I mean, I've always supported manufacturing home parks. We have some in the rural already. Yes, we want to have water and sewer for that. There's some concepts there.

But we can't build a new one. It's better than one unit per 10 acres. What? Unless this rule is changed. So I mean, you don't want us to be able to build a new one?

I actually had that as a project a couple years ago. I had Senator Canope helping me. It, of course, never got anywhere. It was on 52 acres, right a quarter of a mile from the city line, UGB line. And they wanted to do 300 single lines. And then I tried it again. But it's right by our 500 acres. And, you know, it's right there. And it could have been a great opportunity. would enable those kinds of right because the people actually moved doing something in Redmond because it's in the city and they have an easier opportunity. So yeah, so with support because I think it's it's good though.

I have 3 revisions technically. Thank you. But yeah, this is great. This is exactly why. These meetings are so important to ensure the work plan is. Reflective of the board's priorities and. Open to any other suggestions you have as well. And again, I can if this is satisfying, but the Commission's additions and you mentioned, oh, dot. Providing an update in terms of transportation. Yeah, it's, it's a great conversation. I can, I can make that I could ensure that will happen as part of our work task going for the next 12 months. And then the question for you is, with those respective additions or clarifications, whether you would like me to bring this back to you, or if you want to, with those revisions, recognize the work plan, and then I'll make those revisions, update our website, with our board on these and other issues that will certainly find themselves in front of the county commission over the course of the next six to 12 months. I support proceeding at this time.

Proceeding at this time. Approving to this with the edits as discussed. Do you want me to go ahead? I'll move approval with the edits as discussed.

I'll second it.

Second. Any further discussion? Thank you. for the vote. Mr. Devone? Yes. Mr. Barron? Yes. And Chair Routes.

Thank you so much for this process.

Thank you, Peter.

Yeah, happy to chat. Okay, happy to share that information. Yeah, thank you so much.

Okay, item number two, Treasury report for May 22nd. Thanks for joining us.

Okay, big days these days.

Big day.

Big day. Stock market, energy. What's the future look like?

You just completed my report. Good afternoon, Commissioner. Thank you for allowing me to present the May Treasurer's Report. I'll take a few minutes to talk about some high-level events happening out there right now. As of Friday, I was going to talk about something different than what I am today. But geopolitical risk continues to take center stage with the announcement this morning that the U.S. and Iran have tentatively agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The two sides are planning to meet in Switzerland on Friday. The Sun has expected the suspension of the ceasefire for 60 days. and set up a framework to negotiate on Iran's nuclear program. What's interesting is that Israel doesn't appear to be part of these negotiations right now. So that's a little bit of a wild card. Obviously, both sides are claiming victory right now. whatever that looks like. But markets have reacted favorably to the news to a potential end of the nearly four-month war, which has created havoc in global markets. Again, the rising costs have had an impact on U.S. government borrowing costs with shorter-term and long-term bond yields. This is as of Friday. They've come back just a little bit today. remaining elevated with the two-year rate up by 17 basis points in the last month, and the three-year rate was up by 18 basis points. 30-year mortgage rates remain elevated at over 6.5%.

So we were at a meeting the other day talking to someone from Mid-Order Credit Union. Car loans are at 5.5%, houses are at 6.5%. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. I mean, I would not have... And they're reimbursed right now.

Yes. Yeah. Again, they're obviously trying to stimulate auto loans. So offering more attractive shorter-term rates, I think that's something to consider too, is the duration is much shorter on a car loan than it would be on a mortgage. So again, persistent inflation and higher treasury yields have markets. bill pricing and a possible rate increase. Again, that has changed from Friday as well. So we'll have to wait and see the next set of results. That's a step for this week. So they're meeting tomorrow and Wednesday and widely expected to keep rates unchanged, but they are expected to remove the easing bias language, which is in their policy statement. This has been in line with no rate adjustments any time during the January, March, or April meeting. So there hasn't been a rate adjustment since last year. The Fed does remain concerned that the Iran war, even though it may be curtailed right now, has been potentially factoring in possible rate increases later in the year. Again, we'll know a lot more after the next several days. This is a very, very fluid situation right now. And this meeting will be the introduction for our new Fed Chair, Kevin Warren, who is stepping in. W-A-R-N-E, Warren?

No. It's W-A-R-N-E. It's W-A-R-N-E. Oh, you're right.

Yeah, you're right. Sorry about that. It's okay. Okay. Kevin Warsh inherits a challenging economic situation where he's dealing with rising prices, somewhat stagnating growth, and then high energy costs to boot, which are likely to dampen consumer spending. And also, they are curbing business investment in the near term. Again, as of Friday, there was a marked implied profitability of a Federal Reserve rate hike sometime in late 2026. Stay tuned on that. Latest CPI report showed May 2026 inflation jumped 0.6% for the month, which was the sharpest increase since 2022. and it accelerated the annual pace to 4.2%, the highest since 2023. I will point out the bouts of pessimism do not necessarily translate into weaker spending, and that may be the case here as US labor markets have been remarkably strong over the last certain months. The day jobs for the US economy have been 70,000. which was above analysts' expectations, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%.

But the sad news was, I believe, wasn't it 52,000 in the government?

Yeah. When you look at where that job growth was created, and I also noted state and local government was responsible for job creation as well. But large-scale tech layoffs over the last month to 45 days, and I think that'll be telling if I talked about that last month as well, is that reducing staffing so that they can continue to benefit from this. We're certainly seeing that trend developing out there as well. The May 2026 producer price index, which tracks the price that businesses are paying to one another, showed a surge as well, with the annual rate jumping to 5.7%, which is the highest rate since December of 2022. And again, this is something I've been talking about over the last several months, is this is pipeline pressure that continues to build upstream and will likely further impact consumer prices as well. And so the past seven weeks, I've been tracking the consumer sentiment index with the May rate falling to a record low of 48.2. And again, this was as of a couple of weeks ago, so just recognize the delay in timing of the reporting of some of these statistics. But a consumer outlook that is increasingly focused on rising costs of essentials such as food and fuel purchases and high energy costs associated with the Iran conflict. In May, existing home sales rose 3.2%, hitting 4.17 million units. And this is the average 30-year mortgage rate that hit 6.56%. Inventory increases and labor market strength are boosting demand for housing. But inflation, oil prices, and Fed policy could hinder further sales growth. At a regional level, I typically provide data on various markets within Deschutes County. The May Bend single-family residential market revealed a median sales price that actually jumped to $799,000, which was up from $699,000 in April, so jumped about $100,000 in one month.

Is that the median?

What was that?

Is that the mean or the median?

Half above and half below.

Okay, just want to be sure.

Yep. Good question. 157 sales for the month of May. 51 of these sales were above a million dollars, and that's what drove the median sales price higher. And 41 of these were cash sales. Some properties remain low at 13 days. However, inventory levels have increased to three and a half months supply of homes currently listed. And as Peter noted earlier, vendor and single-family building permits were up to $66,000 for the month, which was compared to $30,000 for the prior month. So we have seen an uptick in building permits. Redmond statistics saw median price, median sales price rose to $497,000 for the month compared to $460,000 in April. Redmond area, compared to $23,000 for the prior month. Now, looking at some other markets within Sheets County, Sisters had a $725,000 median sales price on 13 sales. Sun River was $748,000 on eight sales. Animal Pine was at $367,000 on 16 sales. Any questions on economic activity other than Kevin Warsh?

You don't have the time to give me a chance to do that.

And that should be probably released in mid-July.

We have a really great story. Someone that I share the vacancy story with actually got her rent raised by $20 a month, but she got two months free.

All right. That's what's happening out there. So that'll be a preview of my report for July is the number of available and open units has gone way up.

Right.

And so vacancies are up and landlords are cutting deals.

Too much for any customers. Yeah, she's been a long-time great runner.

Oh, yeah, and they don't want to lose. If their runner has been in place for a while and they pay their rent on time, they don't want to lose them.

Okay, so July.

Anyway, yeah, so coming soon.

Thank you.

May Treasurer's Report highlights portfolio balance was $352.9 million at month end. That was a decrease of $4 million from April and an increase of $9.8 million from the prior year. The same amount that I asked you, the same decrease was principally due to large monthly turnover that we processed on May 1st. Net investment earnings were $1,107,300 for the month, which was just slightly below last month, $4,000 to be exact, and $9,900 higher than a year ago. We are, again, rates, our yield, our portfolio yield has been declining over the last three months. So we're starting to see the impacts there. The LGIP rate has remained at 4% for months on end. With the uptick in rates over the last 30 to 45 days, I wouldn't be surprised to maybe see the LGIP rate go up slightly as well. Our first interstate bank rate in May remained at 3.65%, and overall portfolio yields were 3.88%, which was just slightly, it was around, but And I've been proactive with the board regarding my forecast that we've achieved a peak in portfolio yield several months ago. However, the recent spike in yields over the past 30 to 45 days may indicate the start of a new upwardly trending rate cycle. So we'll know more here, I'd say, within the next 30 days or so there.

Was the investment income $10,000 higher or lower? So 9.9K?

Yeah, and I was actually, what did I say in my report?

It was 9.9K lower than May 25. Yeah. And then you verbally said it was higher. It should have been. But it's real close. Yeah.

Yeah. Average time to maturity in the portfolio is 1.33 years, and that's my report.

Well, and the investment portfolio is pretty balanced out for a couple of years now.

Yeah, yeah, no, we've got, when you look at redemptions, that's at the same. So we have more redemption scheduled in May of each year to cover our net servicing. And outside of that, you know, really targeting $78 million in redemptions every month, November, December with tax receipts. Obviously, we don't have to have the portfolio redemption during those months because we have a huge influx of patent receipts.

Bill, what's the limit on how much we can have in LG?

We have a 20-day window that we can take full advantage of during tax receipts. But the limit on that right now, and I think I've got it all. 63,387,000 is the limit. It's gone up since I've been about this. Yeah. And again, we have some flexibility during tax receipts when we go to more frequent turnovers to basically move the cash out of our account. So any questions? Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

I take the finance report.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Robert Tintoul, Chief Financial Officer. Hello. So today we are presenting the May 31st, 2026 financials, which means there's just one month left in this. So we're getting close. Just a few comments before we dive into this report. On Wednesday, AMS BARFs, our budget financial planning manager, will be coming to the board where the board will be adopting the annual budget for Schutz County and all the service districts. So there'll be a lot of motions. I'm sure you'll be taking on that day. Just follow up to Treasurer Kuhn's report on the interest rate, 4.2%. Just want to remind the board, because our COLA for the wages is based on from January through December, and it's the average of the average. So while right now it's year-to-date 4.2, we'll see how the second half of the year goes, because that will determine what the COLA is for wages for the fiscal year. It's not 28, so it's a ways off. So far, the trend has been higher, but we'll see how the second half of the year goes. But that's something we're watching to look at. I think you're talking, you do have the financial reports. The good news is, is this is kind of, I'll say a boring presentation. There's not a lot of.

It's boring now that the health fund is up to 20 million.

And that's a good sign. That's a good thing that there's not a lot of fluctuations. It's predictable. We're looking at our projections. Not a lot has changed, but I will break through or speak through the ones that did change. So you're aware. And yeah, there are some good news. We'll get to the end of the report there.

Yes, but 270 is now projected to be over 40 million.

Yep. That's probably one of the highest so far. So let's start on page 52. Just kind of the overview. The memo, both revenues and expenditures are on target for this fiscal year. Again, this is through May, so there's only one month left in this. We're 91.7% through the fiscal year, about 92%. So we're on target where we should be. Next page 53, which is the position control summary. So that's what I want them to be better than 0, 8 of unfilled positions and that's at the very bottom of the report, which means fiscal year to date of 8.94. And as we know, that's the lowest it's been thus far. And we know a lot of that has to do with we remove the vacant positions from a number of departments or because of leading into next fiscal year, other departments, health services, community justice, they reduced their vacant positions as well. And that's important too. The overtime report on page 54. So the overtime budget's about $3.7 million, and actuals are coming in at $3 million. To date, 83% of the budget has been spent, which is less than 98% of where we're at at this part of the fiscal year. If we look at the sheriff's office, the largest component of the overtime, the overtime's about $2.4 million, and thus far they've spent $2.1 million. or 90% of the budget, that's slightly lower than 92%. That could be that, again, just one month remaining in that. Currently, no fund is over their actual projections, but there will be some budget adjustments that will also come on Wednesday that the board will approve to ensure that no one does go over budget by the end of the fiscal year, as there are three funds flagged earned.

Well, I didn't see any of the Schutz County Sheriff's at the rodeo yesterday, I saw the private security firm there, but there were a ton of the rest.

So, yeah. Oh, good.

Well, so I was thinking like going back.

So I'll go through a few pages. Page 59, General Fund, Fund 001. We did make a few updates on this fund from last month. Revenue projections increased by about $835,000 mostly in other general revenues and the DA revenues lines that you'll see up above in resources. And the expense projections also increased by $427,000. So that leaves a net increase in the ending fund balance of $394,000. But this means that we have 5.5 million additional in the ending fund balance than what we originally budgeted. But again, this has been taken into account in our estimates when we prepared the fiscal year 27 budget and in CAMPS forecast as well. So it's good news. And we typically do have greater ending fund balance than what we budget because we budget conservatively. And we assume we will expend our full expenditures when we do the budget. But we know we don't always spend 100%. And we don't want a budget violation. Go ahead and spend it. So we'll flip to page 62, which is the TLT Fund 160-170. This is another good news story. You will be receiving the TLT report shortly for May. May saw a 5.1% increase. And again, this is the cash we received in May, which is actually for April activity. But this is only the second month. April and May saw increases. The last time we saw an increase was in November. which was October activity. The rest, when it was 0.6%, we saw a 7.4% decrease flat in March. So it's good now that we've seen two months of increase. But still, overall, lodging tax revenue is up 3.3% from fiscal year 25 and up 5% compared to how we've budgeted. So that is good news in that regards. These next pages are, again, just similar to last month, my changes in it. So I'll go to page 65 in your packet sheriff's office fund 255. There are some updated projections here in the revenue boost that I can send you $7,000 between their revenue sources. And the expense projections also increased by $669,000 as they honed in on their last couple months here. So ending fund balance did decrease by $470,000, but the fund is still, the ending fund balance, more than $690,000 than what they had budgeted. So they're still on a positive track for this fiscal year where they're ending with one month to go. Next page, OHP and capital reserves, that $40 million by the end of the year. Currently, it's $46 million, but by the one month to go, and anticipating $40 million in that. So it's still growing here, even though it looks like we're starting to use reserves there, but it's still growing. And as you'll recall, in fiscal year 27 budget, they will be planning on using reserves out of that fund for the stabilization center and to cover expenditures. And that's really what it is, because the reserves, or any time there's excess revenue in fund 274, that's when they'll need it. Next few funds, all the funds, 274 and health services are same as last month. So we won't go over those. Fund 295 on page 71, which is community development. You spoke a little bit about that and all the housing numbers there. Again, the story from them used to be, they're similar to that 2015, 2016 time period. And permitting volumes through may continue to indicate stabilization over the past four fiscal years. So you can carry that out. And if I do go through a page and you have a question, let me know. Otherwise, the next few pages are the projections similar to last month. Like I said, not a lot movement. I will talk about page 78, annual county fair fund 616. We are getting closer to the fair, but this fiscal year basis report, they updated the expenditure projections. Again, page 78, fund 616. And any fun balance is now a 108,000 down from a 162,000 last month so they can have some of the in their expenditures. That's a better way that searching for the state of that age on 616 which is on a calendar basis. They updated the 2026 projections for materials of supplies and materials of services. And now ending fund balance is $580,000 positive up from the negative last month. So they made the adjustment there to reflect their current projection.

I have a question about their sponsorship for the fair, this year's fair. It starts in 26, right? Yes. No, it's in 27.

Fiscal year 27.

Okay, so they... for this next fair?

Not in this fiscal year, and that would probably go into revenue in next fiscal year anyway, since the next fiscal year has a revenue. As you can see, they haven't updated any of their revenue projections. It hasn't posted for this year.

Okay, so we're still talking about 26. We're still talking about last year's fair as a projection, though?

No, this is I'm talking calendar year. This is based on calendar year.

Right. Calendar year.

And so right. So they don't have any. They do have a projection. That's the opposite of that.

Right.

But they don't have any actual to date posted.

Okay. We're talking calendar year then.

Yes. Okay.

So we're not showing anything yet.

Correct. Yeah, you see their revenues just to date, $104,000. Or I'm sorry, $104.

$104, I know. Yeah, $104,000. I was like, this is making me a little nervous because usually when you have to sponsor, you have to pay right away.

Yeah, but we won't recognize. This is accounting from a month ago that we're looking at today. And we won't recognize the revenue yet until it's posted in the fiscal year. So it's not that it's posted.

No, no, no.

Actually, post is revenue until it's earned.

Okay, well, it just seems a bit strange to call it a projection.

Well, yeah, that's what they're projecting to have by the end of the calendar year.

All right. Because, you know, the prior year we lost.

It does show less than the last calendar year.

Well, I mean, in 25, the fair actually was revenue of 2.7 and expenses of almost 2.9 in the 25 fair. Yes. So then my question is, what about the state grant? I thought it was going to be more than $79,000. Does that actually get credited to our affiliates to the organizations?

Yeah. Yes.

It's not half a million, though. We found out what the number was. It wasn't as much as I thought it was much lower, but it's still what I thought it was more than 79.

Yeah, I don't I don't believe that's reflected in this report.

Okay, that was something that I started with the question. And why haven't we gotten that already? No, really?

Yeah.

Did you see the story? Yeah. Okay, thanks.

Yeah, we'll follow up again. Jeff, guys. He has been tracking that. Okay, so risk management fund 670. This is page 83. Report risk management. This has been updated in a positive way as well. Ending fund balance increased by $809,000 compared to last month's expenditures due to our updated expense projections. Again, with only now one month left to go, it's we believe we may end up by the end of the year. So expense projections decreased by 763,000. So they're anticipating to end the year in the projection at 6.2 million, which is about 2 million more than originally budgeted, which, again, is good trend. And finally, age 84 in your packet, health benefits fund, 675. This is another continuing good news story. Then the year-end projections have changed revenue. We did increase that by about 214,000 expenditures. This is a big decrease. We've decreased claims costs, anticipated claims costs by about $5 million. One month left to go. And the, you know, It takes a few months for claims cost to come in. So the projections have been greatly updated. So now ending fund balance projections increased by $5.3 million from last month and to a total of $20.6 million anticipated. And last month it was only anticipated $15 million. So again, it's headed in the right direction. Actually, this may be still a little conservative projection, but we'll see how the data comes in. Much good news story. And it's the same on 9-1-1. No other comments at this point unless you have questions.

There were a couple of good stories in there.

Yeah. And I'll follow up with Jeff Curtis and see if

It wasn't a 5, but yeah, I think it was 2%.

Yeah, based on where we actually were at March or April, I forget the cutoff time, but we took that number and increased it by 2%.

I mean, this year, I'm glad to see we're coming out better than budgeted for this year. snow than anyone else, so people want to play in snow, come here. Last summer, we didn't have that much wildfire activity. Given the fields conditions and given that, you know, that we're going to have the El Nino weather during the summer to the northwest side.

Yeah, we have many months, as mentioned, that we're tracking with no increase or negative a decrease from the prior year in activity and volume. Yeah. And that's the value of, again, making sure we hold that $1.5 million in reserve for a debt service payment. This is also why, as we talked about the Budget Committee, we want to start having the The requirement, just like every other fund, so that something does happen. So we're going to match, according to our policy, all funds are supposed to have that contingency. So we're going to start setting that aside in that fund so that worst case scenario, that fund has the contingency to be able to pay the commitments that we've committed to for the fiscal year. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Right. At this time, are there any other items?

The Newbury Regional Partnership Land Stewards Saturday morning, about 25 people cleaned up two RVs, a boat, plus a band of camp. So that was right next to some neighborhoods off of 6th Street and Pearson, La Plaine area. People that volunteer, it really helps them out to understand what's out there. They see it, they're cleaning it up, they feel good about how it made them. It's a shame we're still kind of chasing this. And these are abandoned camps. We're not kicking people out or doing anything. This is just garbage in the public lands. Not the perimeter of the city. And it was disposed of.

I don't know. at their neighborhoods.

Anything else?

There are no other items. We'll double check. So we held time for executive sessions. Do we have one today? We have executive sessions. I'm not sure we don't have any other items. Thank you.