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City set
to begin
budget
hearings
La Grande Budget
Committee to review
2022-23 fiscal year budget
By DAVIS CARBAUGH
The Observer
The Observer, File
LA GRANDE — Budget review
has arrived for the city of La Grande.
The La Grande Budget Com-
mittee is set to begin reviewing the
proposed 2022-23 fi scal year budget,
with budget hearings scheduled to
start on Monday, May 16, and con-
clude on May 18. The La Grande
overall city budget for 2022-23 is
proposed at just over $63 million,
with a general fund of $19.84 mil-
lion. The budget hearings also cover
the La Grande Urban Renewal
Agency, whose general fund is
requested at just over $2.1 million.
Coming off the peak
of the COVID-19 pan-
demic, the city’s pro-
posed 2022-23 fi scal
year budget takes into
account the challenges
presented by infl ation,
supply chain delays
Strope
and heightened fuel
prices. The city manager’s top pri-
orities for the 2022-23 fi scal year
include American Rescue Plan Act
funding, street and road infrastruc-
ture, housing, economic develop-
ment, staffi ng, fi scal management,
general fund capital improvements,
wildland urban interface and Fed-
eral Emergency Management
Agency maps and land use code
amendments.
The La Grande City Council’s
annual retreat on Jan. 25 created the
framework this year’s budgetary
priorities based on recommenda-
tions from the city’s fi scal com-
mittee. The budget includes an
emphasis on street and road infra-
structure improvements, with some
of the funding stemming from last
year’s budget and an increase in gen-
eral fund revenues after an Urban
Renewal Agency under levy of
$356,754. The proposed budget also
outlines 113 full-time employees
across the city’s departments.
The Urban Renewal
Agency budget includes a
Lindsey Meinhard, left, takes out prepared sack lunches from a fridge alongside head cook Kristi Ritchie in preparation for lunch period at La Grande High
School on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2021. During the pandemic, school meals were free for all public school students in the United States because of the federal
government’s universal free meals program, which may change after the 2021-22 school year. Meals in the La Grande School District will continue to be
free in 2022-23 regardless of what changes are made because it is part of the federal government’s Community Eligibility Provision program.
No such thing as a
free lunch?
Federal universal free lunch program may
expire now that COVID-19 is subsiding
By DICK MASON • The Observer
U
NION COUNTY — Fewer children
in Union County may be eating
lunches and breakfasts served at
their public schools next fall.
There is a strong possi-
bility the federal govern-
ment’s universal free lunch
program, which allowed all
public school students to eat
school meals at no cost the
past two years due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, will
expire in June. This would
mean many students attending
Union County public schools
will again be charged for
school lunches and breakfasts.
“My guess is that this will
cut back on the number of
our students eating school
lunches. We had a lot more
students eating lunches when
they were free,” said Imbler
School District Superinten-
dent Doug Hislop.
The universal free lunch
program was put in place
in March 2020 to give
school districts more fl ex-
ibility and support as they
tackled challenges posed by
the COVID-19 pandemic,
which is now dramatically
subsiding.
The funding needed for
the continuation of the uni-
versal free meals program
is not included in Congress’
The Observer, File
Austin Hawks, a paraeducator, helps students as they receive their free
lunches at La Grande High School on Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021. The universal
free meals program, which the government provided during the pandemic,
is not included in Congress’ proposed 2022-23 federal budget.
proposed 2022-23 federal
budget.
Free and reduced cost
meals will remain for
qualifying students
The good news is that
funding is in the budget to
allow students from low-in-
come families to continue
receiving free lunches and
breakfasts and for others
from households with slightly
higher incomes to receive
reduced price meals.
Hislop is worried that
not all students from low-
er-income families will take
See, Lunches/Page A7
See, City/Page A7
ODFW approves killing two wolves in NE Oregon
Kill permit issued April 29, allows
Wallowa County producer to shoot
two wolves from Chesnimnus Pack
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
JOSEPH — The Oregon
Department of Fish and
Wildlife has issued a kill
permit for up to two wolves
from the Chesnimnus Pack
in Wallowa County.
State wildlife biologists
determined members of the
pack were responsible for
two confi rmed attacks on
livestock between April 25
and 27 on a public grazing
allotment north of Joseph,
resulting in three dead
calves.
ODFW can authorize
lethal take of wolves that
prey on livestock after
two confi rmed depreda-
tions in nine months. That
is the current standard for
“chronic depredation” in
Eastern Oregon, where
WEATHER
INDEX
Business ........B1
Classified ......B2
Comics ...........B5
Crossword ....B2
wolves were removed from
the state endangered spe-
cies list in 2015.
Tom Birkmaier, who
ranches along Crow Creek,
said Tuesday, May 3, that
he received the kill permit
April 29. He is allowed to
take two Chesnimnus Pack
wolves in Dorrance Pas-
ture or Trap Canyon Pas-
ture, where the kills were
confi rmed.
The kill permit is good
through May 24.
“I asked for the removal
of the pack,” Birkmaier
said. “They issued me a kill
permit for two.”
He said his latest wolf
Dear Abby ....B6
Horoscope ....B2
Lottery ...........A2
Obituaries .....A5
Opinion .........A4
Spiritual ........A6
Sports ............A9
Sudoku ..........B5
attacks were on April 30,
when a cow took wolf bites
to protect her calf.
“She saved her calf. She
had two bite marks on her
ribs,” he said. “I walked
that cow and her calf down
7 miles to my ranch and I’m
now taking care of them.”
He said his losses from
the killed calves and the
one injured April 30 —
which he said likely won’t
be marketable — amounts
to an estimated $4,000.
Birkmaier said he’s
been working 20 hours
a day over the previous
eight or nine days to pro-
tect his cattle and use non-
Full forecast on the back of B section
Tonight
Friday
46 LOW
57/42
Showers around
Periods of rain
lethal methods to deter the
wolves.
Ranchers must also
remove all carcasses, bone
piles and other attractants
and be using nonlethal
deterrents such as range
riders to qualify for lethal
take of wolves.
In this case, ODFW
reports the livestock pro-
ducer has a history of using
nonlethal deterrents to
haze wolves in the area,
including fl ashing lights,
radios and hiring a range
rider with funding provided
by a nonprofi t organization.
See, ODFW/Page A8
CONTACT US
541-963-3161
Issue 54
3 sections, 32 pages
La Grande, Oregon
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