Clackamas County approved its budget at a meeting this week.

While the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners decided to adopt a policy directive that it continually conducts a 30-year financial forecast, the majority of commissioners declined to codify the concept and  require outside auditing during a meeting Tuesday, July 22.

Budgeting came under scrutiny this year when the Clackamas County Chief Executive Officer Gary Schmidt initially presented the board with a budget that was projected to put the county in the red in 11 years — with debt ballooning to $250 million  in 30 years — to pay for additional funding requested by the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. During budget season the board rejected that concept and provided the department with less funding than it requested, which may result in lower public safety service levels.

In response to a motion during the budgeting process — which featured long conversations and debates about how the county got to this point and how it should fund public safety — government staff came to the board with options during the Tuesday meeting on how it could bolster financial oversight.

The board recently conducted a 30-year forecast due in large part to the payments it will need to make ($15 million per year) for the next three decades to pay for its new courthouse. The elected body voted at the Tuesday meeting to update a budget development policy requiring that the forecast continue to be updated.

However, Commissioner Paul Savas said simply adopting the forecast as a policy was not stringent enough. He advocated for the elected body to require the forecast within its code language (making it harder for the board to legally change course) and to add further language mandating an outside audit of the forecast.

“A year ago we had a clear policy that thou shall bring forth a financially stable, fiscally and structurally sound budget, period, at budget season — and this time we didn’t. It was a policy and the policy was not followed through on. It wasn’t enough,” Savas said at the meeting.

Schmidt said presenting his initial budget proposal was a mistake he would not make again and cautioned the board not to take too drastic of a measure in response to that.

The majority of commissioners agreed that adding the code language was a step too far and would create too big of a constraint on financial flexibilty.

“My concern is because it’s so nebulous and foggy that far out, (new code language) could also be a detriment to the wellbeing of the county over that 30-year period,” said Commissioner Ben West, who joined the council majority in voting in favor of simply adopting the forecast as policy but joined Savas in voting against a motion not to require the outside audit.

County staff also pointed out that multiple outside audit firms said they would not conduct a 30-year audit because of how challenging it is to forecast that far out.

Chair Craig Roberts said he would be surprised if an outside firm would agree to risk their reputation on a 30-year audit.

Savas had said the importance of the audit is in large part to test the assumptions baked into the county’s financial projections and pointed out a number of projects inside and outside the county where assumptions ended up being wrong (such as the cost to replace the Abernethy Bridge). Schmidt promised that county staff would continue to test forecast assumptions regardless.

For her part, Commissioner Martha Schrader hoped that Clackamas County voters would elect fiscally prudent people in the future and that doing so could be a defense against potential budget issues down the road.

“We are going to need to think that in the future our electorate will continue in a conservative county to elect fiscally conservative members. I’m not seeing the culture of this county hopefully changing that much in the next 30 years that will put ourselves in the red. That’s not who Clackamas County is,” she said.