Boice, Paasch spar over pay raises

A seemingly simple vote on whether to give pay raises to elected officials in Curry County has erupted into another dispute between Commissioners Court Boice and Chris Paasch. The two commissioners, who have been at odds on variety of issues over the last several years, vote differently on the issue, with Boice joining board Chair John Herzog voting in favor with Paasch voting against. After the board voted to approve the raises, Paasch sent a letter to the media decrying the decision and vowing not to accept the raise.

“Yesterday’s decision by the other two commissioners to vote for a raise for the elected officials will cost this county dearly,” Paasch wrote. “We have been working on consumption tax to be paid fairly by everyone including tourists and the best ways to do that and present it to the public for passage. This raise will certainly put a dagger in that and there is in my opinion, no way the public will ever vote to approve it.

“We sit here and tell the public week after week how we are careful shepherds and always looking out for the county budget and how we spend their money. Complaints are lodged continuously of the wasteful spending, and one commissioner produces a list almost weekly of how much money he believes has been wasted and spent. He tells everyone he’s here to cut costs and wasteful spending, yet last year Assessor Kolen and Clerk Kolen were given a 13% and a 14% raise also against the recommendation of the Budget Committee but the board overruled them 2 to 1 and now they are included in this raise as well.

” Paasch said with the county running low on funds, there is even talk about cutting the sheriff’s department. In times like this, he said, across-the-board raises for elected officials was simply the wrong move. Not to be outdone, Boice responded within hours, claiming he, too, was going to refuse the raise.

“I’m disappointed to see the county budget response from Commissioner Paasch,” Boice wrote. “It is difficult to respond to his letter concerning Curry County salaries when it is such a big topic and so much pertinent information was left out. I do remind the Curry citizens his record of wasteful spending in our county is undeniable and now he attempts to portray himself as a benevolent guardian of the public treasury.

It is a false narrative and one of the reasons he refuses to debate me on critical county matters with important fact checker follow ups. ” Boice went on to say he only voted in favor of the raises for elected officials because he wanted to maintain parity in the county pay structure. “I voted for the COLA just as we essentially have done for the entire 120 full-time Curry County employees,” Boice wrote.

“The original Budget Committee intent was to give significant raises only to the Treasurer 8. 25% and Sheriff 5%. I saw that as unfair and something we could not justify (and as it also disregarded the Compensation Committee where all seven elected officials wer e deemed inadequately compensated and overdue pay raises were recommended).

My vote, Commissioner Paasch says goes against the decision of the county budget committee. I note the appointed county treasurer is very unhappy with me as he lost some desired compensation perhaps at least for now. ” Boice added while the county assessor and clerk did receive large increases in recent years, the biggest increase has been for the sheriff.

He said the vote to approve 3% raises for all elected officials actually saves the county money. “Commissioner Paasch fails to mention that the smaller COLAs for the sheriff, one commissioner, assessor and clerk will actually cost the county less that the larger increases for the sheriff and the treasurer would have otherwise received,” Boice said. “Again, I opted not to take the COLA, and, in fact, in order to help the county’s budget, I personally volunteered a $20,000 salary decrease back in 2017-18.

Commissioner Paasch also fails to mention that in Oregon it is the commissioner’s responsibility to set the salaries of all county employees and officers. The law requires the county to impanel an elected official compensation committee to make recommendations and, in the past, our commissioner boards have accepted their recommendations and sometimes accepted the recommendation of the budget committee, but sometimes they’ve not accepted either. That is how it works in all Oregon Counties.

“So, Commissioner Paasch concludes that maintaining parity and competitiveness within the County pay structure by giving a COLA to four positions, and reducing the County’s budget, will cause Commissioner Paasch’s as yet to be defined Consumption Tax to fail. This looks a lot more to me like someone who is looking for an excuse or a reason to blame anyone else, but himself. “For the last five years, I have been dedicated to working a consumption tax plan to hopefully send to the voters.

It seeks funding solely for our Public Safety and Law Enforcement in Curry County. To date Commissioner Paasch appears to have only given it lip-service and then only recently. For the last 3.

5 years Commissioner Paasch’s version of leadership includes being dishonest with the voters, misrepresenting his authority over Special Districts, sewing mistrust over the leadership in our Special Districts seemingly to discourage buy-in from other community leaders, and forcing the county down several ill-conceived paths of wasteful spending and in the last two years his even showing up for work appears to have been the exception, rather than the rule. “Finally, I have previously and will continue to responsibly ask Commissioner Paasch to personally pay back the ill-conceived and failed Open Gov Accounting System he championed that cost the County perhaps somewhere over $ 200,000. The Citizens need to know, I had asked the Board several times prior to vote and stop or cancel the contract before our County paid one dime! Yet Mr.

Paasch tragically refused. He should honorably hold himself accountable. He should explain to the Citizens his commissioner “Service” Record! He’s leaving office at the end of the year and our County is in much worse shape than when he got here 3 1/2 years ago.

What has he accomplished to show for what he’s cost the Taxpayers? My debate challenge to him remains strongly intact. It’ not too late to bring this county together and make his last six months productive. “As a Curry County Commissioner, I remain steadfast in my pledge to work hard and try to keep the County from making bad policy decisions.

My hope has always been to find actions making wise decisions this Board can agree on and work together towards. I will remain faithful and keep trying. ” Paasch then came back with his own answer, sending another comment to the media.

“It seems apparent that commissioner Boice has an agenda, and it is to continue to put out baseless accusations and misstatements against anyone to divert the spotlight off him and attack anyone who disagrees with him. Today, it seems I am his whipping post again. So, here are the facts.

“Commissioner Boice says that I knew he had immediately declined the 3% raise when I wrote my comments on Friday June 10. The truth and facts are my comments were written on Thursday, June 9, and sent at 9:21 a. m.

to our finance director. I had no conversation with anyone prior to sending those comments. I forwarded those comments to news outlets Thursday, June 9, at 11:34 a.

m. Mr. Boice was sent a copy of my June 9 letter to finance director Brad Rueckert.

It is my opinion that he immediately went in and told finance he was refusing the 3% raise as well because of my statement in the letter and he knew it may damage him politically. Just 24 hours previous, Commissioner Boice is on video stating he deserved the raise and was the deciding vote in favor of it. There is no formal written retraction of his raise until Sunday afternoon in a letter from Boice to the finance department rescinding it.

The irony of this is, he was a yes vote during budget committee meetings weeks before that we would not vote for raises for elected officials other than the sheriff and the treasurer. That vote was unanimous. Then he changed his mind.

Again, just watch the last two budget committee hearings. The facts will speak for themselves. The main reason the budget committee voted to not give raises was because of the potential consumption tax measure to be put on the November ballot and the lack of trust that would show our citizens by authorizing a raise for elected officials while also asking for a tax to pay for a law enforcement.

“Boice says he has dedicated himself for the last five years to working on the consumption tax plan. The truth is, he brought it up a few years ago but continually said he didn’t have time to work on it and needed someone else to do the work. Finally, this past spring the treasurer said he would do some work on it, and I have assisted minimally with his work.

After coming up with a workable outline of the tax, we had hoped to do more work on it and have it for a measure on the November ballot. Other than the initial idea, Commissioner Boice, as stated in many meetings, has never ever worked on presenting any form of a consumption tax, what would be taxed or how it would be dispersed to the board. He may have talked about it with other elected’s and said publicly he is working on it but has stated many times he had no time to do the work on it and needed someone else to do that.

Those are the facts. “Boice talked about a 40% increase in salary for the sheriff. The sheriff retired from PERS in 2017 so he would no longer put the burden of PERS on the county.

The money that is paid into PERS was added back into his paycheck, but the county did not need to match it saving us money. By state law, the sheriff must be the highest paid person in the sheriff’s office. Because of compression issues and a cola issued under union contracts to employees, he must get raises to stay ahead of the captain who would make more money than him.

Again, this is mandated by state law. “His continued rant about me aligning myself with our sheriff, well, I am always glad to align with law enforcement and have worked hard to fully fund them however, some of Commissioner Boice’s oral and written comments throughout his tenure about our sheriff are embarrassing. “Boice says he volunteered to take a $20,000 salary decrease back in 2017.

He did that prior to being elected as a campaign promise and that helped to propel him into the elected seat. Around that time Commissioner Gold and Commissioner Huxley were only getting a $10,000 stipend so after he was sworn in, they held Boice to his promise. It is a fact that Commissioner Boice has said that the Kolons, who are the current Assessor and Clerk of the county, are friends of his.

They were the only two in 2021 to get a 12% and a 14% raise even though the county was facing a nearly $2 million shortfall in budget and now again this year he voted them another 3% raise with a larger budget shortfall. “Commissioner Boice speaks about the ill-conceived and failed Open Gov accounting system. After I was elected, the then Finance Director and Director of Operations approached the commissioners to look at updating the counties finance software.

We held meetings about it and voted to award a contract to a company called Open Gov to replace what she considered an outdated software program. There was a 2 to 1 vote by the board that day to approve the contract. Commissioner Boice was the deciding yes vote to approve that contract.

Months later, he asked to rescind the contracts. At that time, Commissioner Gold who originally voted no said that the county had already signed the contracts and things were moving forward and she didn’t think it was right to void the contracts. Later, Open-Gov turned out to be a failure as we learned we were a “beta test” county meaning they were actually building the software needs from the information gained from us and of course I got blamed for it by Commissioner Boice.

“As for his comments about me doing nothing during my tenure, I will let county department heads, ports, sheriff’s office, city leaders and others speak to that. Please, ask them for those facts. Boice’s focus has been made known that he is clearly looking for higher office as since his election five years ago he has since also run for Congress and the Governor’s seat.

It saddens me that I must spend so much of my time defending myself, but I have learned it seems to be the norm here since Commissioner Boice was elected. The list is long of people he has attacked and some that he has forced by his actions to leave the employment of the county. His constant reprimands and threats of doing away with their jobs or their departments by outsourcing them is reprehensible.

Talented good people with families leaving because of his actions. These too are verifiable. “The real reason I did not run for re-election is because of Commissioner Boice.

Until he is exposed and removed, nothing at the County will change. We have lost some very talented people by his hand. I can’t continue to sit there and be able to do nothing about it as only one commissioner.

You can disregard everything I am saying here as hyperbole. Just call a few of the people I mentioned and ask them. “.