GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- After two high-profile searches in Oregon this month ended with dead victims, Gov. Ted Kulongoski wants the state to explore ways of helping local agencies better communicate and coordinate during rescue efforts.

AP Photo/Corvallis Mountain Rescue Unit, Dr. Lindsay Clunes

The Corvallis Mountain Rescue Unit searches the north side of Mount Hood, Tuesday.

The governor is also concerned that county sheriff's departments, which are responsible for conducting search and rescue operations in Oregon, may not be adequately funded, spokeswoman Anna Richter-Taylor said.

"Maybe what we need to do is to look a little bit broader and to see if there's a different relationship, a partnership between the state and the counties, so that we can help the counties in some of these operations," Kulongoski told Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Kulongoski's spokeswoman said the governor wanted to review after-incident reports to figure out where the state can better support efforts on the ground by the local communities.

"Whether it is communications, helping establish a system of centralized communications, or around equipment, the state wants to do everything it can to be supportive," she said from Salem.

Internal reviews of searches are generally conducted by the agencies involved and shared with the state, said Georges Kleinbaum, search and rescue coordinator for Oregon.

Earlier this month, a San Francisco family got lost deep in the Rogue River Canyon in Josephine County after trying to drive a backcountry road through the Siskiyou National Forest during a snowstorm to reach the coast.

After being stranded for a week without rescue, James Kim hiked out for help, but left the road and was found dead of exposure in a creek.

Two days after he left, his wife and two young daughters were found by a local helicopter pilot who was following a hunch and not involved in the formal search. The family hired its own helicopters to join in the search, and there was evidence some information that could have helped focus the search fell through the cracks.

In another search and rescue operation, one of three climbers missing high on Mount Hood in a howling snowstorm was found dead Sunday in a snow cave. The other two, Brian Hall of Dallas and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke of New York, were missing and feared dead after apparently trying to climb down to get help for their companion, Kelly James of Dallas, who had dislocated his shoulder.

  Search called off for climbers

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Kulongoski's budget for 2007 includes $561 million to establish the Oregon Wireless Interoperability Network, Richter-Taylor said.

The money would go toward building 54 communications towers around the state to allow first-responders from state, local and federal agencies involved in emergency operations to talk to each other.

Many sheriff's departments in Oregon are looking at budget cutbacks since Congress failed to reauthorize a safety net that replaced federal timber payments to counties. That safety net included payments used to finance county emergency services.