Towns Cut Costs by Sending Work Next Door; Oregon Counties Join a National Trend, Handle Local 911 Calls, Tax Collection
MOLALLA, Ore.--This town of 8,000 residents has found a way to trim its troubled budget: outsource city-hall jobs to a nearby county government.</br></br>In 2008, Molalla spent $507,973 on employee salaries and other expenses to handle its building permits, inspections and other construction red tape. In the fiscal year ended June 2012, it spent less than $150,000 for that work.</br></br>Molalla did it by finding a subcontractor, much as some corporations contract out to specialists the task of making their products. The town is paying Clackamas County to take care of the construction-related work. So far, town residents aren't complaining.</br></br>Molalla, 30 miles south of Portland, is part of a trend spreading across Oregon among towns and cities facing fiscal crises and seeking to cut spending. The towns of Lowell and Westfir, populations 1,045 and 300, say they outsourced their traffic patrols and criminal complaints to nearby Oak Ridge, population 3,200.</br></br>Oak Ridge, in turn, closed its 911 dispatch service--which had been costing nearly $400,000 a year--by paying the Lane County Sheriff's Department $93,000 to take its calls. Earlier this year, the city of Eugene contracted with Lane County to take over some legal work.