This is a long, dense agenda — much of it is the Board's annual budget-adoption sequence for the County and six separate service districts: the Countywide Law Enforcement District (#1), Rural Law Enforcement District (#2), the 9-1-1 Service District, OSU Extension and 4-H, Sunriver, and Black Butte Ranch. That's largely procedural and mostly happens in a sequence of back-to-back public hearings starting around 9:45 AM.
The items below have direct relevance to county-owned land, homelessness, public safety, public records, data governance, groundwater protection, and how broad budget authority gets translated into real-world policy. Some are formal public hearings. Others are consent or action items that may move quickly unless someone asks a specific question.
These are the budgetary and contract amounts most useful for advocates to understand before the meeting. The key is not just the total dollar amount, but whether the public can see what those dollars buy, what policies govern implementation, and what future spending can happen after broad budget authority is approved.
| Item | Amount | Why Advocates May Care |
|---|---|---|
| Deschutes County FY 2027 budget | $713,869,206 | Main County budget. The Board may make changes up to 10% of expenditures in each fund before adoption. |
| Countywide Law Enforcement District #1 | $65,527,000 | Includes $45,277,517 for Public Safety and $20,249,483 in contingency. Ask for a clearer law-enforcement spending breakdown. |
| Rural Law Enforcement District #2 | $22,349,000 | Includes $16,705,328 for Public Safety and $5,643,672 in contingency. |
| FY 2026 Rural Law Enforcement transfer | $1,177,000 | Moves money from contingency into Public Safety for Sheriff’s Office FY 2026 expenses. Ask what specific costs changed. |
| Deschutes County 9-1-1 Service District | $31,830,775 | Public-safety infrastructure budget: $17,360,447 Public Safety, $560,000 transfers, $10,213,215 contingency, and $3,697,113 reserves. |
| OSU Extension and 4-H Service District | $1,088,737 | Smaller district budget for Extension/4-H, debt service, and contingency. |
| Sunriver Service District | $15,899,116 | Public-safety district budget with operating and local-option tax rates. |
| Black Butte Ranch Service District | $3,540,762 | Public-safety district budget; the packet also includes a correction of a budget-week publication error. |
| Microsoft 365 / CompuNet contract | $728,102.30 | Consent item for countywide Microsoft licensing, Defender Suite, and two Microsoft 365 Copilot GCC licenses. This is an AI/data-governance flag. |
| Helion assessment and taxation software | Up to $295,838 | Consent item for property valuation, tax calculation, and tax collection software. Raises ordinary vendor-access and data-security questions. |
| City of Bend Stabilization Center funding | $400,000 total | $200,000 in FY 2027 and $200,000 in FY 2028 from Bend opioid settlement funds to support County Stabilization Center operations. |
| NeighborImpact septic program request | $450,000 | Three $150,000 installments from future Newberry Neighborhood land-sale proceeds for South County septic replacement loans. |
| CORE3 capital spend/status | ~$34.1M listed | Includes $13M land donation, $1.1M remediation, $5M design/engineering, $2.4M 21st Street, $2.6M left-turn lane, $1.8M fencing, and $8.2M Phase 1A. |
| Type | What It Means | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Consent agenda | Usually approved quickly in one motion unless a commissioner pulls an item for discussion. | Helion, CompuNet, Stabilization Center IGA. |
| Public hearing | Formal opportunity for testimony before adoption. | County budget, law-enforcement districts, 911 budget, fee schedule. |
| Action item | Board discussion or vote; public comment may depend on how the Chair handles the item. | CORE3, Jericho Road, groundwater funds. |
| Executive session | Closed to the public, with limited media access rules. | Litigation and labor negotiations. |
CORE3 site transition, Jericho Road relocation, county-owned land use, and whether people are moved with dignity or simply displaced.
CORE3 law-enforcement training infrastructure, law-enforcement district budgets, public-records fees, and broad technology spending.
Stabilization Center funding from opioid settlement money is a concrete investment in crisis stabilization services.
South County groundwater protection and septic replacement assistance matter most if low-income households can actually access help.
Large budget adoptions, contingencies, and consent contracts can pass quickly unless someone asks what later decisions the money authorizes.
Microsoft Copilot, property-tax software, public-safety systems, and records fees all raise questions about access, retention, audits, and public accountability.
CORE3, described in the packet as an Emergency Response and Training Center, is a roughly 300-acre site in East Redmond that the County set aside in 2022 for a regional public safety training and emergency coordination facility, developed in partnership with the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council (COIC) and other regional and state partners.
The County is being asked to approve moving forward with a lease and Memorandum of Understanding with COIC so that construction — Phase 1A, including perimeter fencing, an access road, a driving skills pad, and an emergency vehicle operations course — can begin in September 2026. A 2024 appraisal valued the site at roughly $12.9 million; the County's planned conveyance of the land to a CORE3-specific entity (an ORS 190 intergovernmental body) is still paused pending that entity's formation.
The packet describes CORE3 as a multi-use public safety and emergency-readiness campus. Initial priorities include site preparation, utilities, environmental remediation, an emergency vehicle operator course and driver skills pad, an emergency coordination center with administrative space and classrooms, and a fire training tower.
Longer-term proposed components include:
The packet states that people are currently living on the CORE3 site. Because Phase 1A construction is planned for September 2026, the staff proposal includes the County issuing a 60-day notice, using County vendor contracts for cleanup, and coordinating relocation assistance, with COIC funding those costs through the CORE3 project budget.
The packet does not spell out how many people are living there, where people are expected to go, what outreach providers will be involved, what happens to personal property, whether disability accommodations will be offered, or what role law enforcement will play. Those details matter because a project framed as emergency preparedness can still cause immediate displacement if the transition is not handled carefully.
CORE3 may serve a legitimate regional emergency-preparedness purpose, but the land-use decision, governance structure, environmental cleanup, tactical training uses, and site transition should be transparent before the project becomes irreversible. How the notice-and-relocation process is handled is worth watching regardless of where you stand on the broader CORE3 project.
This item is about a weekly outreach program, not a development project. Every Friday morning, Jericho Road Outreach — along with Mosaic Medical, Best Care, the Behavioral Health HOST team, United Way, and others — has been serving breakfast and distributing food and supplies to roughly 40 adults and a handful of children at the City of Redmond's Desert Rise property, with a shower trailer also on site. A separate Sunday meal program (Redmond Street Kitchen) serves another 40-50 people.
Because the City is closing Desert Rise, these programs need a new location. The proposal is to temporarily allow that outreach to relocate to County-owned property adjacent to SE 21st Street in Redmond and Oasis Village — land currently leased to Mountain View Community Development (MVCD) for a future ~75-unit permanent supportive housing project. MVCD has confirmed it has no issue with the site being used for outreach in the interim.
This is a useful example of the kind of county-owned-property decision that benefits from clear public communication. The CDD work-plan materials already note that Planning Commissioners discussed the importance of citizen input when county-owned land is used or considered for people experiencing homelessness. It is a small, low-controversy item on its face, but it shows how quickly county land can be repurposed when there is a clear community need and a willing lessee.
NeighborImpact has asked the Board to commit $450,000 — in three $150,000 installments, tied to future Newberry Neighborhood land sales — to recapitalize its South County Septic Replacement Program. That program currently has a fund balance of just $18,622 against nine active nonconforming loans totaling $174,375. Septic replacements cost roughly $30,000 per household, and loans are 30-year terms with deferral options.
The funding source is proceeds from county-owned land sales in the Newberry Neighborhood (La Pine), which flow into two dedicated CDD funds — the Newberry Neighborhood Fund and the Groundwater Partnership Fund — earmarked for reinvestment in South County groundwater protection. A prospective purchaser has signed agreements for two land quadrants: one (Quadrant 2d, ~$1.2M) could close as early as this year depending on subdivision plat approval, with an October 31, 2026 outside date; the other (Quadrant 2a, ~$1.3M) is slated to close January 31, 2028.
This is the same Newberry Neighborhood land-sale pipeline that's been referenced in CDD's FY 2026-27 Work Plan as the funding source for South County groundwater protection. This item is where the Board actually decides how those proceeds get allocated — a concrete test of whether that funding commitment translates into action once money is actually on the table.
Consent items often pass in one motion without discussion. Three consent items deserve attention even though none is framed as a controversy.
This is not presented as an AI policy item, but the licensing quote includes two Microsoft 365 Copilot GCC licenses. Ask who can use Copilot, for what purposes, whether prompts and outputs are retained, and whether the County has a public AI-use policy.
This supports property assessment and taxation functions. Ask about vendor access, audit logs, VPN or remote access, database permissions, breach notice, backups, and subcontractors.
This is likely positive from a behavioral-health lens: Bend opioid settlement funds would support continued operation of the County Stabilization Center.
These appear to be housekeeping items, but they show how intergovernmental structures and inactive funds are formally dissolved or closed.
The packet does not show a specific ALPR, drone, facial-recognition, or surveillance-technology purchase. But the law-enforcement budgets are broad enough that the public cannot easily see what is being spent on body cameras, fleet cameras, data systems, forensic tools, cloud evidence storage, transcription, records systems, or outside-agency data sharing.
The FY 2027 fee schedule matters for accountability. The Sheriff’s Office section includes records/video redaction at $81.32 per hour. Records fees are not just administrative: they affect whether residents, journalists, advocates, and families can actually access public-safety records.
The bulk of the morning (roughly 9:45 AM onward) is a series of public hearings adopting the FY 2027 budget for Deschutes County and six special service districts in sequence — the Countywide Law Enforcement District (#1), Rural Law Enforcement District (#2), the 9-1-1 Service District, the OSU Extension and 4-H Service District, the Sunriver Service District, and the Black Butte Ranch Service District — plus the County's FY 2027 fee schedule. Each is its own public hearing with its own opportunity for comment, though in practice these tend to move quickly unless someone raises a specific concern.
The consent agenda also includes dissolution of the Deschutes County Road Agency (Resolutions 2026-017 and 2026-018) and closure of several inactive county funds (Resolution 2026-016) — both housekeeping items, but part of the public record if you're tracking how county funds and intergovernmental agreements are structured.