Coos County voters turned down two tax levies on Tuesday, one to fund public health services and the other to reopen a dark section of the county jail.

Voters also refused to place a cap on spending out of the Coos County Forest Fund — but by a narrow margin. The final forest fund vote was 13,189 no, 12,717 yes.

Coos County District Attorney R. Paul Frasier was not surprised the jail levy failed.

“I thought it had a 50-50 chance before federal money came up. I felt at that point it probably wasn’t going to be successful,” he said. “Voters would say, ‘You have the federal money. Why do you want more?’”

The county got notice last month it would receive almost $6.2 million of federal funding in lieu of timber payments this coming year, with smaller payments for the ensuing three years.

With nearly all votes counted, the levy for jail and drug enforcement costs was failing 20,904 to 7,371, or 74 percent to 26 percent.

The public health levy failed 19,070 to 8,862, or 68 percent to 32 percent.

The failure of the public health measure disappointed County Commissioner Nikki Whitty.

“I kind of thought public health would pass,” she said. “It wasn’t time to have a money measure on the ballot.”

Public Health Administrator Frances Smith said the levy would have provided $450,000 to the department each year for the next three years. Without that money, the county has some tough decisions to make.

 “The future of public health is uncertain in Coos County,” Smith said.

She added the department will run as frugally as it can for as long as it can, but ultimately the Board of Commissioners will have to decide public health’s future. As it stands, the department is operating on a loan from the county, but receives no general fund money otherwise.

The budget process starts in January, but Smith is thinking she will have meetings with county leadership before then.

The department had to borrow the funds to get through the fiscal year’s first quarter. Smith said she is uncertain whether her department will be able to pay it back.

“We are currently operating in the red,” she said.

Frasier had hoped for separate help from his office from a statewide initiative, Measure 62. The initiative would have allocated 15 percent of Oregon lottery proceeds to funding public safety, but it too was rejected by voters.

Sheriff Andy Jackson and Frasier have talked about creating law enforcement taxing districts in place of the failed tax levies. There would be two districts, one including cities and another limited to the unincorporated areas of the county. Frasier said the incorporated cities do not want to pay for sheriff’s deputies who mostly patrol rural areas, so the district including the cities would pay for the jail, the county Juvenile Department and the District Attorney’s Office. Unincorporated parts of the county would pay for deputies.

Creating the districts would make law enforcement within the county completely independent of the county’s general fund, Frasier said. Jackson and Frasier are aiming to seek voter approval for that concept in 2010.