Union County Budget & Contracts

Union County's adopted budget has grown roughly 88% since FY 2018-19, from about $37 million to roughly $70 million in FY 2026-27. Vendor-level disbursements are not disclosed in the approved budgets -- so what the public can see, and what it cannot, are two very different records.

Citation-backed9 fiscal years (FY 2018-19 to FY 2026-27)3 documented contracts

Union County official budget page county-budgets-7yr.md

Budget growth -- nine fiscal years

From FY 2018-19 to FY 2026-27, the county's adopted budget grew by roughly 88%, while the permanent property-tax rate remained $2.9668 per $1,000 assessed value across all nine fiscal years. The separate voter-approved Weed Control local option also remained $0.12 per $1,000; voters renewed it in May 2026.

Fiscal year	Total adopted	General fund	Est. property tax revenue	Permanent rate	Commissioners	Budget officer	Source
FY 2026-27	$69,672,232 Final adopted total in Resolution 2026-07. The pre-adoption LB-1 notice listed $69,172,232; the signed resolution adopted $69,672,232. Adopted June 24, 2026 (Resolution 2026-07).	$19,161,231	$7,790,000 (pre-adoption estimate)	$2.9668	R. Matthew Scarfo, Paul Anderes, Jake Seavert	Shelley Burgess	Resolution 2026-07 / FY 2026-27 approved budget
FY 2025-26	$70,518,135 Adopted June 25, 2025 (Resolution 2025-12, unanimous). The budget committee approved $70,365,199 for publication on May 21, 2025; pre-adoption amendments recorded in the June 25 minutes (+$180,000 insurance revenue for Joseph Building fire repairs, +$99,000 CJC IMPACT grant extension, less a CJC MOUD revenue reduction) reconcile exactly to the adopted total. La Grande Observer (June 28, 2025) reported the rounded $70.3M. Adopted June 25, 2025.	$17,749,882	~$7.3M (estimated)	$2.9668	Paul Anderes, R. Matthew Scarfo, Jake Seavert	Shelley Burgess	Resolution 2025-12 / FY 2025-26 approved budget
FY 2024-25	$64,490,726 Adopted June 26, 2024 (Resolution 2024-08).	$17,869,819	$7,035,000	$2.9668	Paul Anderes, Donna Beverage, R. Matthew Scarfo	Shelley Burgess	county-budgets-7yr.md
FY 2023-24	$61,446,464 Grand total revenues $61,446,464 per the adopted budget document (OCR extraction from the 132-page PDF).	$14,406,688	$6,645,000	$2.9668	Paul Anderes, Donna Beverage, R. Matthew Scarfo	Shelley Burgess	public-records/budget/Budget_FY2023-24.txt
FY 2022-23	$58,447,255 Total adopted budget $58,447,255 (Resolution adopted June 29, 2022). General fund total $13,155,120; narrative notes $13,123,849 general fund with property tax at 47% of revenues. OCR extraction from the 173-page scanned PDF.	$13,155,120	$6,190,300 (adopted) / $6,421,848 (actual)	$2.9668	Donna Beverage, Paul Anderes, R. Matthew Scarfo	Shelley Burgess	public-records/budget/Budget_FY2022-23.txt
FY 2021-22	$50,569,032 Adopted June 30, 2021 (Resolution 2021-12).	$13,515,515	$6,220,000	$2.9668	Donna Beverage, Paul Anderes, R. Matthew Scarfo (Chair)	Shelley Burgess	county-budgets-7yr.md
FY 2020-21	$47,851,644 Adopted June 24, 2020 (Resolution 2020-13).	$12,366,130	$5,983,000	$2.9668	Paul Anderes (Chair), Donna Beverage, R. Matthew Scarfo	Shelley Burgess	county-budgets-7yr.md
FY 2019-20	~$37,080,261 (total resources) PDF re-posted Feb 2025; not extracted in corpus run. Historical columns in FY2020-21 document supplied the figures shown.	~$12M (estimated)	$5,815,000	$2.9668	Paul Anderes, Donna Beverage, R. Matthew Scarfo	Shelley Burgess	county-budgets-7yr.md
FY 2018-19	~$37,132,096 (actual total resources) PDF not extracted in corpus run. Figures shown are actuals from historical columns in subsequent budgets.	~$11M (estimated)	$5,647,957 (actual)	$2.9668	Steve McClure, Jack Howard, Donna Beverage (per court/ecourt-search-log.md for the same 2017 board)	Shelley Burgess	county-budgets-7yr.md

The FY 2026-27 row comes from Union County's official adopted budget records. Historical figures are sourced from county-budgets-7yr.md and cross-referenced against the 2025 Annual Wage Report. The final FY 2025-26 and FY 2026-27 rows link directly to the county's signed adopted-budget records. FY 2022-23 was checked through an OCR text extraction; FY 2019-20 figures shown here come from historical comparison columns in neighboring approved budgets.

What the approved budget does NOT show

Oregon Local Budget Law (ORS Chapter 294) requires Oregon counties to publish category-level totals in their adopted budgets -- Personnel Services, Materials & Services, Capital Outlay, Debt Service, Contingencies, and so on -- broken down by fund and department. It does not require those documents to disclose who the county paid, line by line, at the vendor level.

Union County's approved budget PDFs through FY 2026-27 follow that standard format. They contain aggregate fund, department, and category totals (for example, the FY 2024-25 book shows Materials & Services of $21,945,029 across all funds). Some books do use broad labels such as "DA - Legal Services," but none of the reviewed books names Baum Smith or attaches a disbursement to that vendor.

This is the normal format of an Oregon county budget. It is not, by itself, evidence of concealment. What it does mean is that a member of the public reading the approved budget PDF cannot see which vendors actually received the county's money, in what amounts, without filing a separate public- records request for the Treasurer's vendor warrant register or the Schedule of Expenditures from the Annual Financial Report.

That separate request is what this page is built to help the public file.

Known contracts -- what is in the corpus

Three Union County contracting relationships surface clearly in meeting minutes, court filings, the 2025 Annual Wage Report, and 79 monthly expenditure reports. Two have a published contract or award ceiling; Baum Smith has a documented payment stream, but no published contract value or rate in the records reviewed.

Mike Becker Construction

General contractor (Oregon)

Contract: ~$3.63M in announced awards; $2,236,056.63 in published County payment lines (2020-2026)
Period: FY 2024-25 through FY 2025-26
Scope: Airport Hangars A + B construction; Union County Fairgrounds water and wastewater system build-out.
Procure: Competitively bid. Airport hangars: lowest of 5 bids (ORS 279C public-improvement competitive bid).

Airport Hangars A + B: $1,132,810, awarded by Board motion on January 22, 2025, lowest of 5 bids received.
Fairgrounds water/wastewater: approximately $2.5 million, funded by HB 5006 and SB 5531 state appropriations; groundbreaking November 14, 2025.
Matt Scarfo chaired the roughly seven-year fairgrounds effort and has cited the project as his principal reason for seeking a third term.
The County's ORS 294.250 monthly reports show $2,236,056.63 actually paid to Becker across 25 payment lines (2020-2026) -- hangar and fuel-farm construction, capital improvements, a small annual yard lease, and wolf-depredation grants. Payment lines are extraction floors, not contract values.

Sources

meetings/2025-01-22-full-minutes.md players/matt-scarfo.md

Pinnacle Architecture

Architecture firm (Bend, OR)

Contract: $98,000 (not to exceed)
Period: FY 2024-25
Scope: Opioid-abatement facility feasibility study (site and program analysis for a facility funded through Oregon opioid settlement money).
Procure: Selected via Request for Proposals (RFP). First phase completed using approximately 51% of allocated funds (per the January 22, 2025 minutes); supplemental services agreement authorized January 22, 2025.

Not-to-exceed contract value: $98,000 for the feasibility phase.
Supplemental services agreement authorized at the January 22, 2025 Board of Commissioners meeting.
Funded from Union County's Opioid Settlement Fund (budgeted at $490,000 in FY 2024-25 -- the fund's first year; $484,000 budgeted FY 2025-26 per the adopted budget).

Sources

meetings/2025-01-22-full-minutes.md

Baum Smith LLC / Wyatt Baum

Law firm (La Grande, OR); personal-services attorney contract

Contract: Not disclosed in public records
Period: Published payments Jan 2020 - Jun 2026; counsel role documented through 2026
Scope: De facto Union County Counsel: legal advice to the Board of Commissioners, representation in Case 25CV22067 (the term-limits validation petition), and signature line as "attorney for petitioner" on the April 7, 2025 petition.
Procure: Not established by the reviewed public record. ORS 279A.055 allows a local contract review board to designate service contracts or classes as personal-services contracts, while ORS 279B.050(4) lets a local agency elect to apply the chapter's competitive procedures. The contract and County procurement rule or decision are needed to determine which procedure governed this engagement.

Disclosure gap. Contract value, rates, and billing terms are not disclosed in the adopted budgets or 2025 Annual Wage Report. The County's 79 published monthly ORS 294.250 reports (Jan 2020 - Jul 2026) do document $127,250.05 to Baum Smith, LLC across 118 lines in 59 months. The latest Baum Smith line is in June 2026; none appears in July 2026. What services each payment purchased, and at what rate, remains undisclosed. This is a factual gap in the reviewed public record, not an accusation.

Wyatt S. Baum (OSB #111773) signs the April 7, 2025 validation petition as "attorney for petitioner" for Union County in Case No. 25CV22067.
Appears in at least 2024-present Board of Commissioners minutes as "Legal Counsel" presenting agenda items (including the January 22, 2025 Term Limit Clarification).
Approved budget PDFs through FY 2026-27 do not name Baum Smith or attach a vendor-specific dollar amount to County Counsel. The FY 2026-27 book does contain aggregate department/category labels such as "DA - Legal Services," which are not vendor disbursements.
The County's 79 monthly ORS 294.250 reports do name the firm: 118 payment lines totaling $127,250.05 in 59 months (Jan 2020 - Jul 2026 coverage; last Baum line Jun 2026), coded variously as contractual services, legal costs, professional services -- and three lines coded "Sheriff's Posse."
The December 2025 Annual Wage Report contains no "County Counsel" payroll row; it does not disclose the Baum Smith contract or rate.

Sources

public-records/commissioner-salaries-and-more.md court/lg-20332-notice-text.md meetings/2025-01-22-full-minutes.md

Presence on this page is not an accusation of wrongdoing. The Mike Becker Construction and Pinnacle Architecture entries describe contracts with public dollar figures and documented procurement processes. The Baum Smith LLC entry describes a documented relationship whose aggregate payments appear in 79 published monthly reports. The engagement terms and task-level billing were not present in the reviewed public budget materials -- a records gap, not a finding of wrongdoing.

What would reveal vendor concentration

Three categories of public records, taken together, would let the public reconcile the published monthly payment lines against the County's underlying ledger and contract files. These are the targeted records that would close the remaining gaps.

01
Union County Treasurer's vendor warrant / payment register
A complete, machine-readable vendor warrant or check/EFT register for FY 2018-19 through FY 2026-27. The County's monthly PDFs now provide 79 reports from January 2020 through July 2026; the underlying ledger would permit a completeness check and supply stable check or EFT identifiers.
Agency: Union County Treasurer / Administrative Services
02
Named-project contracts, amendments, and payment schedules
Executed contracts, amendments, change orders, invoices, and payment schedules for the Mike Becker Construction airport and fairgrounds projects and the Pinnacle Architecture engagement. This would reconcile announced award ceilings with the expenditure-report payments actually published.
Agency: Union County Administrative Services
03
Baum Smith LLC county-counsel contract and invoices
The personal-services attorney contract (or engagement letter) between Union County and Baum Smith LLC / Wyatt Baum, any retainer agreement, and the full invoice and payment history for fiscal years 2020-21 through present.
Agency: Union County Administrative Services / County Counsel's office

Why some contracts are bid and others aren't

Oregon public contracting is governed by three ORS chapters. Each covers a different kind of contract and sets different rules for when competitive bidding is required.

ORS 279A -- Public contracting, general

Umbrella chapter defining public agencies and procurement authority. ORS 279A.055 allows a local contract review board, by ordinance, resolution, rule, or other regulation, to designate service contracts or classes as personal-services contracts. The statute does not itself identify Baum Smith's engagement or prove which local procedure applied.

ORS 279B -- Goods and services

Contracts for goods or non-construction services. Under the 2025 statutes, contracts up to $25,000 may be awarded as small procurements; those above $25,000 and up to $250,000 use the intermediate process, generally seeking at least three quotes or proposals. ORS 279B.050(4) says a local agency may elect to apply the chapter's procedures to designated personal services.

ORS 279C -- Public improvements (construction)

Construction and related public-improvement contracts. ORS 279C.335 generally requires competitive bids, subject to stated exceptions and exemptions. Current law excepts public improvements below $25,000 and permits competitive-quote procedures through $100,000. The $1,132,810 Mike Becker Construction airport-hangar award was documented as the lowest of five bids on January 22, 2025.

The practical consequence: the record documents a competitive bid for the airport-hangar award. For Baum Smith, the reviewed public record does not contain the contract, the County's governing procurement rule, or a procurement decision. It therefore does not establish whether the relationship was competitively selected or handled under a valid personal-services designation. That is a records gap, not evidence that either process was improper.

Context: county-funded legal work prompted an ethics investigation

On February 6, 2026, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission voted 7-0 to investigate possible violations in OGEC Case 25-708ECF involving Commissioner Matt Scarfo. One of the allegations presented by OGEC's Compliance Coordinator is that Scarfo used publicly funded county counsel to pursue a term-limits challenge that -- if it succeeded -- would directly benefit his own ability to run again. That underlying legal work was performed by Baum Smith LLC. The February vote authorized an investigation; it was not a finding of violation. OGEC's final-disposition portal showed no published disposition for the case as of August 9, 2026.

Read the OGEC case timeline

If you've seen a Union County check, we want to hear from you

If you've ever received a Union County check, processed a vendor warrant, or seen an invoice go out to a county vendor, you can help close the disclosure gap above. Names can stay off the record. The documents are what matter.

Request a record / share a document Support this work

Disclaimer. This page is a journalism resource. Every figure traces to a Union-County-published source (approved budget PDFs, monthly expenditure reports, the 2025 Annual Wage Report, or Board of Commissioners minutes) or a court filing in Case 25CV22067. The historical source set is indexed in the public corpus. Nothing here is legal advice, and nothing here alleges wrongdoing by any named person or firm. Corrections to: levi@valorinvestigates.com.

Full corpus: github.com/ValorInvestigator/union-county-term-limits