Commissioners discuss shifting share of commissioners' budget to internal services; no immediate adoption

Klamath County commissioners discussed a proposal to shift the commissioners' budget from the general fund to internal service charges but did not adopt a change on Jan. 28.

Internal services staff reported that different allocation methods produce widely varying results. Using a flat-rate internal service fee would create an additional charge of roughly $22,258 per department and could raise general-fund departments' costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars. "When I add the commissioner's budget to that, it would cost $22,258 per department to pay for commissioner's budget and the general equity budget," the staff presentation said. Under another allocation model, general fund departments could be responsible for $388,000 of additional internal service fees.

Staff recommended against implementing the change this year and proposed a year-long process for the commissioners to document how their time is spent across departments before moving costs to internal services. Commissioners debated alternatives including a hybrid approach to shift about half of the commissioners' budget to non-general-fund departments so that the general fund would not bear the entire cost.

Direction but no final vote: Staff agreed to prepare numbers showing how the hybrid split would affect each department and to present those figures to finance the next day. The board discussed how to communicate any change to department heads before implementation; internal services staff warned the first year would be the most disruptive because allocations would be recalculated.

What happens next: Staff will present department-level cost estimates for a proposed hybrid allocation and the county's internal services cost schedule to the board and finance staff for review. Commissioners did not take a formal vote to change budgeting method during this meeting.