County wants figures on building code reserves

Conversely, Wasco County wants to know how big its share of the reserves is before it makes that decision.

This back-and-forth has gone on for a while, but now the county has taken a firm stand on the matter.

At a county commission meeting Dec. 5, County Administrative Officer Tyler Stone said he will tell the state that the county won’t decide until the state allocates the reserves.

That flies in the face of a year-end deadline the state gave the county for making a decision.

But Wasco County Commissioner Scott Hege said if the state holds to that tight timeframe, his vote would be to let the state take it over.

The significant downside of the state taking it over is that the longtime local building codes office would close and move to Pendleton, or perhaps even Salem, according to the state.

Building codes services have been housed in The Dalles for years, provided first by the state, then by the Mid-Columbia Council of Governments. MCCOG handled building codes services for four counties—Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam and Wheeler—before dissolving earlier this year.

Stone chafes that the state wants to put the building codes program in the county’s lap, since building codes is a “core service” of the state.

Commissioners also believe the state will reverse itself and agree to keep an office open in The Dalles, given its population.

Wasco County has reached out to the other former MCCOG counties to see if they would contract with Wasco County for building codes services, since that would mean the reserve would not have to be split among the counties. Only Sherman County has expressed interest.

The county has discussed the situation numerous times this past year, and Stone said his position is unchanged.

If it was merely a financial decision, he’d let the state take it, since building codes is an expensive service with difficult-to-hire employees. But having the local office close would affect both contractors and residents and even hurt the local economy, he said, making it more than just a financial consideration.

Unlike the state, if the county took over the service, it could not pull in staff from elsewhere in the state if local staff became sick and couldn’t work.

Wasco County Commissioner Rod Runyon said there is no obligation for the city of The Dalles to participate in a local building codes solution, but he said the city “may end up being a partner down the road.”

The Dalles accounts for 75 to 85 percent of all building permits issued in the county.

The county proposed having a long-sought “one stop shop,” with both city and county planning and building code services in one place. The city nixed it as too expensive, since the proposal included buying the former MCCOG building to house the service.

Wasco County officials believe Wasco County will get the bulk of the reserves.

Wind projects in the eastern counties contributed fees for years, but some years ago MCCOG was so broke it proposed a 40 percent fee increase, which was lowered to 20 percent.

After that time, money started coming in from the huge Google projects in The Dalles.

Stone said he believed most of the reserve revenues generated from wind farms in eastern counties were largely spent down by the time MCCOG had its financial crisis.

If the county lets the building codes service go back to the state, it would lose the reserves. If the city took it, the reserves would also be kept by the state.

Hege said he was hesitant to spend a majority of building codes reserves to start up a county-run building codes program. “You can’t operate without reserves.”

Stone said he agreed with that, but he was operating under the assumption that the county would have to take on the program by the end of the year, per the state’s deadlines.

The state is currently renting space from the county—at its planning department building—for building codes. Runyon said the space is adequate but “jammed” and should be redesigned in fairness to staff.