CANYON CITY — Grant County covers a lot of ground — roughly 4,500 square miles, bigger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined — but it just got a little smaller for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.

On Jan. 17, Frank Ordway, the county’s newest patrol deputy, graduated from the state law enforcement academy, joining another recent addition, Cody Crismon.

The two must still complete on-the-job field training requirements before they can apply for full law enforcement certification from the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, but they’re already providing much-needed reinforcements to a patrol division that has long been stretched painfully thin.

The addition of Crismon and Ordway brings the number of deputies assigned to patrol the county to five, plus Sgt. Damon Rand, who heads up the division. Sheriff Todd McKinley and Undersheriff Zach Mobley are also available for patrol duty as needed.

“We are now at full staff for what we’ve been approved,” McKinley said. “We got two more out of this last round of budgeting.”

Additional funding comes in the form of a new intergovernmental agreement with the city of John Day, which has pledged to pay $100,000 a year for policing from the sheriff’s office. That matches the amount paid by Prairie City, the only other municipality in the county that contributes directly to the sheriff’s budget.

While several Grant County towns once had their own police departments, all have now closed down. John Day was the last to do so, in October 2021.

That’s left the sheriff’s office and the John Day outpost of the Oregon State Police as the primary law enforcement agencies in the county.

Until now, staffing limitations have forced the sheriff’s office to focus most of its attention on John Day, the county’s most populous community and the source of most calls for law enforcement services, according to the sheriff.

“When you’ve got one person, two people on (patrol duty), it’s hard to get somebody broke free from town,” McKinley said. “You just can’t.”

But with two new deputies joining veterans Savannah Coalwell, Mike Ratchick and Garrett Shreve in the patrol division, the sheriff’s office now has much more scheduling flexibility.

“It is going to make a huge difference,” Rand predicted. “Scheduling for sick or vacation time is easier. The workload will be spread out amongst five deputies instead of three.”

And that should translate into a greater police presence in communities outside the Highway 26 corridor such as Monument, Long Creek and Seneca.

“The residents of Grant County will see a large increase in patrols throughout the outlying towns,” Rand said.

“We were stuck mainly patrolling in the John Day Valley due to the call volume, and it was extremely difficult to patrol the outlying towns with our limited staff. “

For now, at least, the intergovernmental agreements with John Day and Prairie City should provide enough funding to keep the additional patrol positions on the payroll, but McKinley said he will keep working to maintain that financial stability without having to go out to the voters for an operating levy.

“We’ve got to be sure it stays sustainable,” he said. “I’m cognizant of that.”