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NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
State auditor says Grant County CARES Act spending could cause concern
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
A state report showed Grant
County’s COVID-19 federal reim-
bursements could be at risk for a fed-
eral audit.
Upwards of 20 hours per week of
overtime for COVID-19 Emergency
Operations Center leaders and allo-
cating 100% of county court labor
costs to Grant County’s COVID-19
response with scant documentation
could raise questions from federal
or municipal auditors, according to
a report last month from the Oregon
Secretary of State’s Office obtained
by the Eagle.
The Department of Administra-
tive Services, the agency responsible
for dispersing to local governments
millions in federal Coronavirus,
Aid, Relief, and Economic Security
Act money, audited Grant County
COVID-19 expenses last month and
determined it was at medium risk of
being questioned by federal auditors.
The auditors chose 32 local gov-
ernments to audit for the first round
of reimbursements from March to
May 15. According to the report,
Grant County was selected due to its
large payroll request and its regional
location.
Grant County was one of 12 local
governments that had a medium risk
of being questioned by municipal or
federal auditors, the report said.
The county has since returned
$15,481 of the $35,268 received for
the county court salaries, which was
recommended by Treasurer Julie
Ellison. The original figure submit-
ted to the state included 100% of
County Judge Scott Myers’ wages,
even though he tracked his COVID-
19 hours separately.
With the exception of the county
Eagle file photo
Grant County Emergency Manager Paul Gray, left, and County Commissioner
Jim Hamsher, the county’s emergency management liaison, talk during the
county’s Nov. 5 curbside testing at the fairgrounds.
court salaries and the high overtime,
the audit report said the county’s
request was not high relative to the
county’s budget.
For three months of work, the
county requested reimbursement
for about $100,000 for the EOC
and $75,000 for the health depart-
ment. The report noted that, in light
of budgeted costs, the figures were
reasonable.
The EOC, public health work-
ers and the county court made up the
lion’s share of the county’s request
based on time tracked for COVID-
19-related activities. The county
chose not to claim 100% of public
safety and public health costs, which
would have been allowed, per the
Treasury guidelines.
The state’s auditors requested
documentation for the court’s labor
costs and a rundown of daily tasks to
justify allocating the reimbursement
to the county’s COVID-19 response.
In an Oct. 21 phone interview
with state auditor Scott Learn, Grant
County Commissioner Jim Ham-
sher said he kept track of his hours
on a FEMA form and put in 1,000
hours over 10 weeks. Learn said in
an email the audits division did not
receive the forms.
The Eagle submitted a public
records request in July for the FEMA
daily activity reports and so far the
county has not provided them.
Hamsher also said the coun-
ty’s emergency manager at the time,
Ted Williams, resigned the day of
the governor’s statewide emergency
order. The EOC employees with high
overtime came into help the EOC
“get on track,” he said.
Williams, who had been the coun-
ty’s emergency manager for four
years, stepped down after an emer-
gency Grant County Court session
March 6.
Williams disagreed with the
court’s decision to appoint Dave
Dobler, a sheriff’s deputy, to
head up “coronavirus task force,”
which effectively replaced his
emergency management team,
on the recommendation of Sher-
iff Glenn Palmer. He also dis-
agreed with opening up an EOC
when one existed next door to the
county health department, the lead
agency, during a health emergency.
Both Dobler and EOC staffer
Steve Fletcher averaged at least 20
hours per week of overtime.
Dobler, in a September email with
Learn, said the projected death toll in
both the state and county justified the
overtime.
According to Learn’s report, the
explanation was reasonable, but a
large amount of overtime for several
employees “could raise questions on
the appropriateness of spending.”
Fletcher’s base wage on his time
card showed $16 per hour as his
base wage, but the amount used in
the request was $24. It turned out,
according to an email between Ham-
sher and Learn, that Fletcher received
a raise to $24 in May.
The auditors noted the staff posi-
tions at the EOC and the health
department were “reasonable” and
tied to public health. The report also
said they had seen commissioners
involved in response to the virus in
other rural areas.
Community Counseling Solu-
tions, contracted by the county to pro-
vide public health services, tracked
its COVID-19 time separately while
county employees did not.
While the auditor noted the EOC
documentation showed public safety
and public health costs were logi-
cal for coronavirus-related uses, the
county court 100% reimbursement
was not well documented and lacked
detail on what the commissioners
did.
In emails and interviews with
auditor Learn, Hamsher said both he
and the EOC’s public information
officer, County Commissioner Sam
Palmer, both devoted “a lot of time”
to protect the public health and devel-
oped reopening plans for the county.
Hamsher said Myers was also
extensively involved in the COVID-
19 response when asked for details
on what kind of tasks he did.
“It appears the county can make
a strong argument of substantially
dedicated for the employees that
make up the majority of the reim-
bursement requested, public safety
and public health. However it is not
clear if the county’s percentage allo-
cation approach for commissioners is
valid,” the audit said.
Overall, three of the local govern-
ments reviewed were at a high risk of
being questioned. For example, Sun-
set Empire requested reimbursement
for 100% for its parks and recreation
staff, asking for reimbursements for
fitness instructors and lifeguards. The
others the Port of Morrow, which put
in for high-dollar payouts for all of
its staff including administrators, and
Lincoln County, which requested
reimbursement for expenses incurred
before March.
The auditors did an overall review
of how the counties documented
expenses, requested reimbursement
of allowable costs and accurately
filed.
Roughly $200 million of the
$1.64 billion Congress sent the
state in March through the CARES
Act to help pay for pandemic-re-
lated expenses requires the money
to respond to the public health emer-
gency, according to the U.S. Treasury
Department.
Expenses have to be unexpected
and not accounted for in a budget as
of March 27, when the CARES Act
became law. For a cost to be eligible,
it must occur between March 1 and
Dec. 30, 2020. Local governments
have until the end of the year to spend
the money.
Rep. Owens planning for upcoming legislative session
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
State Rep. Mark Owens,
R-Crane, who represents Grant
and Harney counties, updated
Grant County Court about the
state response to COVID-19 at
the last county court meeting
Oct. 28.
Owens said COVID-19 is
dominating the conversations.
He told the court that the peo-
ple he talks to in communities
within his district are “ready to
move on.”
Owens said he believes
communities need to protect
their vulnerable populations so
they do not overwhelm their
health facilities.
Owens
said
the
weekly calls
he sits in on
with other
local repre-
sentatives,
State Rep.
commission-
Mark Owens
ers and sena-
tors have been valuable.
He said he believes that it
would not have been possible
to push back against Gov. Kate
Brown’s first restrictions on
phased reopenings and school
reopenings without those calls.
In the future, he told the court
that he is concerned the “second-
ary effects of COVID are going
outweigh the primary effects.”
Owens told the court that he
believes the virus is real, but said
waiting for a cure or a vaccine
before moving on to another
phase is “no longer acceptable.”
He said 40% of Oregon’s
hospitality businesses have said
they will go out of business in
the next six months.
Owens said another situa-
tion that relates to COVID-19 is
that the capital has been locked
down.
“The public has not been able
to participate,” he said. “That, in
my opinion, is wrong. You can’t
make public policy and good
public policy without public
participation.”
He said the state has to figure
out how to allow public partici-
pation before the legislative ses-
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sion begins Jan. 18, 2021.
Presently, he said, the long
session in odd years starts the
day after Martin Luther King
Day and goes for 160 days.
Owens said he is bringing 35
legislative concepts that either
have come from him or his
constituents. One that directly
affects Grant and Harney coun-
ties that came from new Emer-
gency Manager Paul Gray is
declaring 911 dispatchers first
responders.
Owens said he has a con-
cept that would limit the gover-
nor’s emergency declaration to
14 days. Under his plan, the gov-
ernor would have the ability to
extend the declaration one time.
Any other extensions would
need to come before a legislative
assembly for a vote.
“I don’t think there is any-
thing wrong with that,” he said.
“It is checks and balance. I don’t
care if they do their vote virtu-
ally, but we need to make sure
that there is some balance even
in a so-called pandemic.”
He said another piece of leg-
islation he hopes to introduce
is creating a special district to
increase the county’s Payment in
Lieu of Taxes payment. Owens
said the county’s PILT, an annual
payment local governments
receive to help offset property
tax revenue losses because of
federal lands, was considerably
lower this year.
He said PILT is linked to
the Secure Rural Schools Act,
and in 2017 the SRS was not
authorized.
“That finally caught back up
to us,” he said.
He said, if the county sets up
a special district, the state will
funnel the funds to a special dis-
trict that would go to roads and
schools.
He said funds would not be
considered a prior payment on
PILT. Owens said Grant County
could receive roughly $600,000
more that would go into its gen-
eral fund.
“It’s a loophole,” he said.
“Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t
exercise it, but other states are,
so we’re going to try and exer-
cise that to bring more money
into Grant County.”
He said he also wants to dis-
connect from Oregon’s corpo-
rate activity tax, the 2019 gross
receipts tax that the legislature
passed in 2019 after the voters
turned it down.
“It’s a horrific tax,” he said.
“It’s a pass-through tax we’re
all paying for, different areas
are going to be affected quite
more, and if we could abolish
the whole thing, I would, but
we can’t. But we’re going to
start trying to take small bites of
that elephant. The first one we
are trying to get excluded from
that is ag.”
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