GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Officials are handing out pink slips and cutting law enforcement to the bone in an Oregon County where voters have rejected a levy to plug a $12 million budget gap.
The Josephine County sheriff and district attorney began Wednesday to cut staffing to levels probably not seen since the region was settled during the 1850s Gold Rush.
The sheriff’s department says the cuts will require releasing about 90 inmates from the jail in the coming weeks.
Incidents of drunken drivers, domestic abuse, shoplifting and car wrecks will likely be where people see the loss of sheriff’s patrols and prosecutors first.
The district attorney’s office will lose four of its nine prosecutors. District Attorney Stephen Campbell says he’s working out a list of which crimes he will be able to prosecute, and which he will not. Most misdemeanors will not be prosecuted.
