Polk Co. struggles to handle 911 calls after budget cuts

DALLAS, Ore. — The 911 call came into dispatchers as a domestic dispute. The woman on the line complained that her husband was firing a gun and setting off fireworks inside their Polk County home.

Caller: "Please get law enforcement out here."

Operator: "Okay, I don't have any."

Caller: "Oh, my God…."

Operator: "You are in Polk County."

Caller: "She doesn't have any law enforcement."

This call is an example of the challenge many rural sheriffs offices face across Oregon.

That's because they're broke.

"I worry about the victims. I worry about the citizens. And I worry about my officers," said Polk County Sheriff Bob Wolfe.

Due to a budget shortfall, Wolfe has reduced patrol hours. The Polk County Sheriff's Office doesn't any officers on duty from 10 p.m. until noon the next day.

That's 14 hours with not a single deputy on the street. If there's an emergency, dispatchers have to call someone in or rely on an outside agency.

"When people call in the middle of the night and they need the sheriff's office to respond, we're not there," explained Deputy Greg Caudill.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office had 19 deputies in 2008. Today, there are six.

"We are probably at a deeper crisis than even we think we are at," said John Bishop, Executive Director for the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association.

For years, rural counties relied on federal timber money. The subsidies that paid timber counties millions of dollars to make up for revenues they lost when logging was cut on national forests was the backbone of their budget. But now that money has dried up leaving sheriff's offices empty-handed.

"You know there are certain parts of the state where you could have a fatal traffic accident and it may be six to eight hours until you could have somebody respond to that accident," said Bishop, a former Curry County Sheriff.

Voters in Curry, Polk and Josephine counties have repeatedly rejected tax hikes.

"As these counties stop having law enforcement, that is going to have an impact on other counties and other cities," said Bishop.

Many people in timber country are still hoping for a long-term solution that would allow for increased logging on federal forests. Others think local tax levies are the answer. Some people believe the state should step in.

"I think that something is going to have to be done," said Bishop. "Or the system is going to implode."

Related: Ore. police cuts leave some arming themselves