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Klamath County director warns justice-reinvestment cuts could force closures, bed reductions and service cuts
Summary
Community Corrections director warned that state funding changes and law changes are reducing county justice-reinvestment income, likely forcing elimination of positions, housing contracts and hundreds of thousands in savings measures; he recommended not applying for a competitive supplemental grant.
Eric Heltman, director of Community Corrections, told the Klamath County Board of Commissioners on July 1 that legislative funding changes and law reforms have sharply reduced state grants that support local community corrections programs and that the county will likely face substantial program and staffing reductions.
Heltman reviewed multiple pieces of recent legislation and commission guidance, including references to House Bill 5005 and materials summarized by the Association of Oregon Counties. He said changes to how deflection programs and behavioral-health floors are funded will reduce per-program allocations and that the legislature’s biennial decisions have effectively reduced funding available to counties for deflection work.
Heltman said Klamath County’s share of the statewide population used to be 3.63% in the 2023–25 biennium and has fallen to 3.16% for 2025–27; he estimated that the county could see roughly $1.3 million in reductions tied to population-based funding formulas. He described expected cuts to competitive justice-reinvestment (JRP) funding: Klamath County previously received $277,045 in the competitive grant cycle and an intended 5% uplift would have raised that amount, but proposed statewide scaling would instead reduce the award by about 28% to an estimated $209,446 for the biennium. Heltman recommended that Community Corrections not apply for the competitive evidence-based sensing supplement because the reduced award would not fully fund the deputy district attorney position that the grant has supported.
Heltman detailed program-level options to absorb expected reductions: proposing elimination of six vacant positions (estimated savings of about $1.1 million for the biennium), ending the county’s housing contract (about $1.5 million biennial savings) and mothballing a 16-bed facility (Vine Street) and other housing reductions totaling 41 beds. He said that canceling contracts and shrinking bed capacity could leave participants without transitional housing, increasing homelessness risk and affecting victim services because 10% of the grant funding flows to victim services. He also said his department may need to scale back offender incentives, mentoring contracts, short-term transitional programs and some assessments, and that jail funding previously supported by JRP would be impacted.
Commissioners and Heltman discussed timing: some grant application deadlines (including justice-reinvestment adjusted applications) fall in July, and Heltman said he needed final guidance quickly. Commissioners asked Heltman to present more finalized numbers after the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) posts official allocations and to take the issue to the local public-safety coordinating council (LipSick) for partner input.
Ending: Heltman said he would return with final figures and recommended the board prepare for likely program reductions; commissioners asked him to brief LipSick and to return after grant allocations are finalized.
