Polk County News
Polk County Itemizer-Observer • February 10, 2016 3A
Car accident
JOE WILSON/for the Itemizer-Observer
Emergency crews work fast to remove the driver from one of the cars involved in a
crash near Kings Valley Highway and Highway 22 on Thursday afternoon.
WOU enrollment down 10 percent
By Emily Mentzer
The Itemizer-Observer
MONMOUTH — Enroll-
ment at Western Oregon
University is down 10 per-
cent overall as of the four-
week fall count.
The numbers can be a lit-
tle deceiving, said Dave Mc-
Donald, associate provost.
While the university is
down in full-time equivalent
students and in overall
headcount, there has been a
change in the way students
are counted, McDonald said.
Students who are enrolled
in classes to further their ed-
ucation, such as teachers
from Salem-Keizer, are not
counted until they complete
the class, he said.
“They roll over to winter
term or the end of fall term,”
McDonald said. “They’re
there, but they aren’t in the
count.”
He said roughly 400 stu-
dents fall into that category,
or about 100 FTE.
Incoming freshmen went
up 8 percent, which McDon-
ald said is a good move for-
ward.
“That was a nice re-
bound,” he said.
New transfer students
were basically flat and inter-
national students were
down 10 percent.
Graduate students were
up 29 percent, McDonald
said.
“It is down a little bit, ab-
solutely,” he said. “That large
graduating class (in 2015) re-
ally pulled it down a bit. The
good news is we had a great
graduating class. The bad
news is: we had a huge grad-
uating class. When you have
a huge graduating class, it
puts incredible pressure on
our incoming students to
make up.”
Enrollment numbers
should stabilize because the
Class of 2016 looks more like
a normal size for Western,
McDonald said.
Retention between grades
also is up by 1 percent, he
said.
“Our short-term goal is 75
percent” retention rate, Mc-
Donald said, with a long-
term goal of 85 percent.
Not all students who stop
going to school at Western is
a bad thing, he said.
“When someone starts at
Western and goes to Oregon
Health & Sciences University
nursing program, it counts
against our retention rate,”
McDonald said as an exam-
ple. “We’re going to celebrate
that success of that student
going to the nursing pro-
gram, but our numbers take
a hit from that.”
Some of the ways WOU
has worked to improve stu-
dent retention is by hiring
more people to support stu-
dents from all walks of life,
from veterans services to
Wolf Connections.
“Those are all pieces that
we’re building into our
process to give greater sup-
port to students,” McDonald
said.
Police will not request money
Scammers can pose as officers looking for help in sting
By Emily Mentzer
The Itemizer-Observer
POLK COUNTY — Scams
can be scary, and the latest
IRS calling scam can get
worse than threatening mes-
sages on your answering ma-
chine, said Ellen Klem, direc-
tor of consumer outreach
and education for the Office
of the Attorney General.
“The tone has been really
aggressive and frightening,”
Klem said.
Last year, the top com-
plaint of the year reported to
the Office of the AG was the
IRS imposter scam, with
1,400 complaints, Klem said.
The second-most com-
plained about scam received
700.
“We’re not alone, unfortu-
nately,” she said. “Across the
country this is happening to
lots of other people.”
But the IRS scam, as well
as its similar scams in differ-
ent clothing, can get worse
than just a robot leaving a
message on the answering
machine.
After making the threat,
scammers may hang up and
another will call back pre-
tending to be from the local
police or Department of
Motor Vehicles, said Inde-
pendence Sgt. Tino Banue-
los. Often the caller ID will
support their claims.
“If a person ever has a
doubt about whether the
person on the other end of a
phone call is, in fact, a police
officer, they can request the
officer’s name and agency,”
Banuelos said. “I would not
rely solely on the caller ID as
even these numbers can be
‘spoofed.’”
Klem said if someone falls
initially for a scam, and then
gets wise to the mistake, it
can lead to a different tactic.
“The scammer comes for
more money,” Klem said.
“You say, ‘I’m wise to you;
you’re not getting any more
money.’”
So they get a call from a
police officer asking for help
to catch the scammer, Klem
said.
“They say, ‘this is a bad
scam,’” she explained.
“We’re looking for undercov-
er people to help us. Can
you wire some more money
to that same person. Here’s
my badge number. I prom-
ise you’ll get your money
back.’”
Even if the caller ID looks
right, local law enforcement
would never request money
to be sent to a scammer.
“Our officers would not
call someone like this and
definitely not try to get any-
one to send money,” Mon-
mouth Sgt. Kim Dorn said.
“This is not how law en-
forcement would set up a
‘sting operation.’”
Furthermore, Dorn said
the person should look up
the agency on his or her own
instead of asking the scam-
mer for the return phone
number, using, Google, the
phone book or 411.
Dallas Lt. Jerry Mott said if
money was required for an
investigation, officers would
not seek for a citizen to pay it.
“If we needed something
like that to happen, we
would take over the account
and fund it with investiga-
tive funds,” he said. “A police
officer should never request
money from a person over
the phone, email or social
media.”
Mott said sometimes peo-
ple will receive a phone call
from the Dallas City Animal
Control to let them know
they need to renew their dog
licenses, but even then they
will be asked to come to City
Hall to pay or mail in the
payment, never to pay by
phone with a prepaid Visa
card or otherwise.
The bottom line is: hang
up.
“It is really hard though,
especially if you’ve been
raised to be polite when
people come to the door and
call on the phone,” Klem
said. “But that’s your best
line of defense. If you have
to, write it on a sticky note
and put it by your telephone.
I think that’s good advice.”
Money for conservation
Itemizer-Observer staf report
POLK COUNTY — Agricultural producers will
have a chance to receive inancial payments
through the Conservation Stewardship Program
(CSP) — the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
largest conservation program.
The CSP is ofering up to $150 million nation-
wide to farmers, ranchers and private forestland
owners who enroll acres into the program.
The CSP is a voluntary program that encour-
ages producers who have already adopted con-
servation measures to pursue new or additional
conservation activities to reach a greater level of
land stewardship. CSP payments are awarded
under ive-year contracts based on the number
of acres enrolled.
The USDA’s National Resources Conversation
Service administers the payments.
In Oregon, CSP has up to $18.8 million avail-
able in 2016. NRCS Oregon has allocated up to
355,530 acres for the general CSP signup and an
additional 31,850 acres for signups in core sage
grouse habitats.
CSP is open to individual producers, Native
American Tribes and non-proit
organizations/entities.
Applications are accepted throughout the
year, but must be turned in by March 31 to be
considered for enrollment in 2016.
For more information: www.or.nrcs.usda.gov.