The Lincoln County Commission has decided to close the Eureka Justice of the Peace office in an effort to trim the county’s dwindling budget. The board made the decision on July 2, with commissioners Tony Berget and Ron Downey voting to close the office and Mike Cole, who represents Eureka, hoping to keep it open.
The office will close on Dec. 31 and with it one and a half jobs will be cut. The decision to close the office comes months after the commission decided to consolidate Libby and Eureka’s justice of the peace positions into one. Now Eureka’s Stormy Langston and Libby’s Jay Sheffield are running for one open seat in this year’s election.
Prior to last week’s vote, Langston said whoever won the November election would hold court in both Libby and Eureka, but now residents in north Lincoln County will have to drive all the way to Libby to deal with legal matters.
“I’m really disappointed by the fact that they’re not going to provide this basic service to people in the north end of the county,” Langston said. “It’s unfair and it puts a financial burden on the people up here.”
The decision to close the justice of the peace office comes as Lincoln County looks to cut even more from its shrinking $15 million budget. Besides receiving less Secure Rural School funding from the federal government, the county mistakenly overtaxed residents by about $2 million over three years. The mistake was realized earlier this year and the commission has since been looking for ways to pay residents back.
While next year’s budget has yet to be finalized, a preliminary version is expected to be available in the coming weeks. According to Berget, most department budgets have been cut by at least 5 percent in an effort to reduce the budget by at least $500,000. The sheriff department’s budget was reduced by approximately $200,000 and the road departments in Libby, Eureka and Troy each lost $25,000.
The cuts come as the county’s commission is also being shaken up. In June, Berget was defeated in the primary at about the same time Downey announced he would be stepping down for health reasons. Cole, who was elected in 2012, will become the commission’s senior member come January.