Misunderstanding leads to packed budget hearing

By Terry Murry on Monday, May 8th, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

UMATILLA COUNTY – The Umatilla County Budget Committee faced something new at its recent meetings – a full house. Umatilla County Commissioner John Shafer, who is the budget liaison, said the presence of a crowd was due to the power of social media.

“Unfortunately someone got on social media, didn’t know what they were looking at and were blasting the county saying we were raising taxes 8.95 percent,” he said. “That wasn’t the case at all. Legally, we couldn’t even do that.”

It turns out the sentence being used was not for tax increases but were for an anticipated increase due to new property owners moving into the county.

“Every time there’s new construction, new homes being built, the county receives more,” he said. “That 8.95 percent was anticipated new revenues.”

Shafer said that the county explained the only way it can increase the property tax rate is to ask for the voters to approve it.

“Once the people understood that, they were fine,’ he said. “They did have some good questions and a lot of them stayed for a good chunk of the day. We really appreciated them being there. We hope to have that again next year. We want people to be part of the budget process and how we’re spending your dollars.”