Deschutes County departments presented quarterly performance updates during the Board of Commissioners meeting on Nov. 3 under the county’s FY26 "Healthy People" objective.

Jim Patterson, strategic initiatives manager, said departments set measures tied to county goals and that several departments were selected to report this quarter.

Facilities staff reported they perform semiannual maintenance inspections and annual building-condition assessments to prioritize sidewalk and parking repairs. Lee Randall, facilities director, and Shannon Osendorf, facilities operations manager, said the department aims to inspect 80% of the sidewalk and parking inventory annually and identified spring projects including sealcoating and restriping at specific county properties.

In Health Services, Jillian Weiser, compliance and quality assurance officer, described the county’s Language Access Program for behavioral-health clients. She said roughly 1.2% of behavioral-health clients are recorded in the system as needing an interpreter (most commonly Spanish), the department employs about 1.5 FTE dedicated to language-access work plus roughly 24 bilingual staff paid at tiers to assist, and combined internal and contracted services provided about 200 hours of interpreting from January through June 2025. Weiser said the department uses a vendor network for on-demand needs and that translations involving health care terminology follow extra verification steps to meet health-care interpreter standards.

Christina Di Benedetti, program supervisor for intensive youth services (interim manager), reported that nine youth graduated from the RAP/wraparound program this quarter and that all nine were enrolled in school at discharge; the program currently serves about 81 youth (October figure) and tracks outcomes using the CANS assessment.

Public-health prevention staff reported social-media view metrics for prevention campaigns this quarter: a suicide-prevention campaign generated the bulk of activity (~6,676 views), with smaller view counts for opioid-overdose prevention (Friends for Life) and an alcohol-harm awareness campaign (Rethink the Drink). Staff clarified that the metric is total views (including promoted/paid impressions), not click-throughs.

Environmental Health reported 996 field inspections this quarter versus 979 required (102% of the target). Supervisors said the higher number reflected rechecks and a new performance-measureing system, even as the program manages staff transitions and retirements; the program is training inspectors to be generalists who can perform pool, lodging and other inspections.

Natural Resources (county forester Kevin Moriarty) reported 79 active Firewise communities with 17 pending registrations (96 sites when pending sites are included) and said the county awarded a record 54 fuel-reduction grants this fall. Moriarty said the Project Wildfire neighborhood-coalition meetings are expanding countywide and that participation trends are improving.

Solid Waste staff reported diversion exceeded the three-year average goal for the quarter: the target of about 15,000 tons per quarter was exceeded with roughly 23,000 tons reported. Staff attributed gains to a large increase in compacted yard debris collection and a 134% increase in wood/lumber diversion; they also noted the county’s composting footprint is undersized for seasonal volumes and described plans to expand processing capacity and to study a construction-and-demolition processing facility.

Across departments, commissioners thanked staff for improvements and asked staff to continue planning for capital and operational needs (street/sidewalk repairs, expanded composting, inspector training). No binding county policy changes were made at the meeting; the reports were informational.