Oregon Ethics Commission votes unanimously to conduct full investigation of Lincoln County commissioners’ hiring decisions

This story was originally published on LincolnChronicle.org and is used with permission.

Lincoln County commissioners may have broken several public meeting laws when deciding what positions to exempt from their budget-triggered hiring freeze, according to a review by Oregon Government Ethics Commission staff.

In June, commissioners approved a $207 million budget but had to balance a $4 million shortfall with a hiring freeze . At the time, a little over 20 vacant positions were impacted. Department heads could apply for exceptions, which had to be approved by county commissioners.

But rather than explaining the hiring exemption requests and then voting to approve or deny them in a public meeting, commissioners were asked by human resources director David Collier to privately c