As gas prices rise, some Eastern Oregon government officials are starting to take notice.

In Hermiston, regular unleaded is creeping up around the mid-$4 per gallon for regular unleaded. Diesel is around a dollar more per gallon.

The AAA Gas Prices website, gasprices.aaa.com, listed the average price of gas in Umatilla County as between approximately $4.39 to $4.58 per gallon, lower than most of the state.

The average price for regular unleaded in Oregon on Friday, March 25, according to the website, was approximately $4.72 per gallon. The same website listed the per gallon price for the same gas as approximately $4.01 a month ago and $3.16 a year ago.

“From a straight city operations perspective, we’re certainly taking those things into account in our budgeting for the upcoming year for fuel costs of operating vehicles, but where we’re really feeling it the most is in some of our capital construction projects,” Mark Morgan, Hermiston’s assistant city manager, said.

He explained that the city was recently notified of a diesel fuel surcharge for asphalt for the foreseeable future.

Projects like paving, he said, are very oil-intensive and are “certainly seeing more inflation than others.”

“One of the ways that we manage that is that if we start to feel pressure on a price is that we will break a project down into component parts, and try to identify what are the most critical parts, then when we bid the project, we will list some of the smaller parts as alternatives,” he said. “That way, we have the ability to complete the core project on budget by just jettisoning some of those extra components that might be able to be pushed off for something in the future.”

He added that, when taking this approach, “you also always have to be cognizant of whether that part that you’re pushing off to the future may actually come down in price in the future, or you may be shooting yourself in the foot by making it more complicated and more expensive in the future.”

Gas prices, then, are a growing consideration for the city. According to Jason Edmiston, Hermiston chief of police, his department, too, is affected, though he added that officers “have not changed our practices or services per se.”

“I have encouraged our officers to be more cognizant about vehicles left running for extended periods,” he said.

“We take great pride — as the larger expense to the City General Fund — to ensure we are under budget each year,” the chief stated. “As of today, we are 6.4% over budget in fuel which equates to roughly one month of usage. This year will be the first in a long time where I will be requesting a supplemental increase to offset that deficit.”

Hermiston police are not the only ones thinking about pump prices, as Umatilla’s police chief is paying attention, too.

“All I have done with my staff is to make them aware of the rising costs and asked them to minimize usage when they can but right now our operations have not been affected,” Darla Huxel, Umatilla Police chief, said.