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Guide to The 2024 Oregon Legislative Session

Oregon lawmakers headed to Salem early Monday morning for the start of a 35-day sprint to pass budget fixes and bills addressing some of the most pressing issues facing the state.

Along the way, they’ll want to hear from Oregonians about how they should vote and what issues they should prioritize. Here’s a guide on engaging with the Legislature:

The basics – Oregon’s Legislature has 90 members, 60 in the House and 30 in the Senate. State representatives are up for election every two years, while senators serve four-year terms.

Democrats control both the House and the Senate, with 35 Democrats in the House and 17 in the Senate. Gov. Tina Kotek is also a Democrat, and, in general, Democrats are able to pass most bills into law without needing Republican support though a three-fifths majority, or 60%,  is needed to pass revenue-raising bills. Still, most proposals are supported by both parties. The state constitution requires 40 House members and 20 senators be present to do any business. That unusual law allows Republicans to shut down the Legislature by walking out, as Senate Republicans did for six weeks last year.

Some states have full-time legislatures, but Oregon’s is part-time. Most lawmakers have other jobs.

In odd years, lawmakers meet for up to 160 days. They pass hundreds of laws and approve the state’s budget for the next two years. In even years, they meet for 35 days to tackle any pressing issues or fixes to the budget.

How do bills become law? — Every representative and senator can introduce two bills this year. Committees introduce other bills. Most are now posted online.

Because of last year’s Senate walkout, bills now come with a short digest explaining in simple language what the bill would do.

Each bill is assigned to a committee, and the committee’s chair schedules public hearings for bills they think should be considered. The committee holds hearings on bills, usually followed by a work session to decide whether the bill needs amendments and whether it should move forward.

Bills that carry a fiscal note, meaning they’ll cost the state money, go to the Ways and Means Committee. Others can go to the full House or Senate, and the speaker or Senate president decides whether they should be scheduled for a vote. A bill that passes one chamber starts the process over again in the other.

If both the House and the Senate pass a bill, it goes to Kotek, who can sign it into law or veto it.

How can I weigh in? — You can always email or call your representative and senator. Contact information can be found here for the House and here for the Senate. If you don’t know who your representative or senator is, you can find out by searching with your address here.

You can also speak to a committee about a bill during a public hearing or provide written testimony up to 48 hours after a public hearing concludes. Find instructions for submitting testimony online here.

Visiting the Capitol — Most of the Capitol has been closed for nearly two years and will remain closed for another year because of an ongoing nearly $600 million construction project intended to prepare the historic building to weather seismic activity, upgrade dated electrical and plumbing systems and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The House and Senate chambers, one hallway with six hearing rooms and legislative offices remain open. Visitors can enter through an entrance on State Street across from Willamette University and will go through security. They’ll see elevators to the House chamber and offices down the hall on the left and to the Senate chamber and offices on the right.

There are metered parking spaces near the Capitol and parkades and three-hour on-street free parking a few blocks away in downtown Salem.

Visitors can watch lawmakers debate bills in the House and Senate from galleries on the third floor. They can also sit in the audience for committee hearings, and overflow rooms may be available for widely-attended hearings. Hearings can also be watched online. Links are posted under the committee name and appropriate date. To find a meeting for this session, go to the calendar for the 2024 regular session, find the appropriate day  and click through to the appropriate hearing. (SOURCE)

Rural Property Owners Are About To Be Subject To New Wildfire Regulations

In the wake of a series of devastating wildfires across the western United States, several states have made significant changes to their state wildfire programs. After the 2020 Labor Day Fires, Oregon joined suit.  In 2021, the Oregon Legislature adopted SB 762, which provided more than $220 million to help Oregon modernize and improve wildfire preparedness.

Oregon’s new program is based on three key strategies: creating fire-adapted communities, developing safe and effective wildfire response, and increasing the resiliency of Oregon’s landscapes.

Implementation of SB 762 got off to a rocky start with the roll-out of the state’s wildfire map.  As a result, the legislature enacted SB 80 in 2023, which made significant changes to the map and mapping processes. The two bills combined change Oregon law in a way that will directly impact property owners, yet few Oregon property owners are aware of the pending changes. We think that needs to change.

Here is what you can anticipate from Oregon’s new wildfire programs:

Wildfire Programs Advisory Council will oversee implementation. — 2024 is set to be a significant year for Oregon’s wildfire program, and the Wildfire Programs Advisory Council (WPAC) will be deeply involved. WPAC is a 19-member Council appointed by Oregon legislative leaders to advise both the Oregon legislature and Governor Kotek on Oregon’s wildfire program – its strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. I was honored in September to be chosen by my fellow council members as the incoming Chair of the WPAC.

The role of WPAC is to serve as the voice of the public on Oregon’s wildfire program.  In fact, both Sam and I serve on the council – Sam as the representative of Oregon’s agriculture community and me as the representative for Oregon’s rural residential property owners.  The Council meets four times a year, and in special meetings when needed.  Our meetings are conducted virtually and are open to the public.  Public participation is encouraged and welcomed. (READ MORE)

Legacy Health takes action to ensure Regence BlueCross BlueShield members have access to quality, financially sustainable care close to home 

Legacy seeks fair, reasonable and competitive increase in reimbursement. 

Portland, Ore. (Feb. 6, 2024) — Legacy Health recently issued a notice of contract termination with Regence BlueCross BlueShield in effort to secure a fair, reasonable and competitive increase in reimbursement for care. If discussions reach an impasse, Legacy’s contracts with Regence will terminate on March 31, 2024.

Contracts between healthcare providers and insurance companies set the reimbursement for how much insurance companies pay for their members’ care. Given the rapid growth in labor costs and inflation over the last two years, Legacy informed Regence 10 months ago that they should expect a significant rate increase in our next contract. This contract renewal applies to all Legacy hospitals and clinics, excluding Silverton hospital and clinics that have a separate agreement in place.

“Legacy Health cares for Regence members who deserve to receive quality and financially sustainable care close to home,” said Merrin Permut, Legacy Vice President and Chief Population Health Officer. “Regence has been an essential partner for decades, and we remain hopeful. We’re asking Regence to support an increase that reflects the economic realities in health care today so that all of us can focus on our top priority — the well-being of their members and our patients.”

Regence’s reimbursement has failed to keep pace with the rising expenses that healthcare systems across the country are experiencing as they struggle to recover financially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Legacy’s expenses rose by 24% in just two years, driven by inflation and rising costs for supplies and labor. Regence’s recent strong financial performance and its stable financial foundation makes them well positioned to support care provided at hospitals and clinics with sustainable rates.
“We are seeking reimbursement that is competitive with other health systems in the Portland region and reflects the value and actual cost of care we provide to patients in our communities,” Permut said. “Unfortunately, Regence has not agreed to our current proposal and is not adhering to the timelines they set forth. We are concerned for Regence members who face further anxiety about the potential for disruption of services and reduced access to care.”

The notice of termination allows both parties to continue negotiations for another three months without the Legacy-Regence contract automatically renewing with the old financial terms. If the two sides do not reach a new agreement on or before March 31, 2024, Legacy will no longer be in-network for Regence members, except for emergency care.

Patients can stay informed about our progress by visiting our website at LegacyHealth.org/RegenceContract

XXX About Legacy Health
Legacy Health is a local nonprofit health system driven by our mission to improve the health of those around us. We offer a unique blend of health services – from wellness and urgent care to dedicated children’s care and advanced medical centers – to care for patients of all ages when and where they need us across the Portland/Vancouver metro area and mid-Willamette Valley. With an eye toward a healthier community, our partnerships tackle vital issues such as housing and mental health. Legacy strives to help everyone live healthier and better lives, with the vision of being essential to the health of the region.

CMS approves Oregon State Hospital plan of correction

Salem, Ore.- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved the Oregon State Hospital (OSH) Plan of Correction (PoC). The plan details how the hospital is responding to findings that it was deficient in areas related to the secure medical transport of justice-involved patients.

CMS surveyors visited OSH in September and October 2023 after a patient’s unauthorized leave while in secure transport restraints. At the time, OSH worked closely with CMS and successfully implemented corrective actions to remove an “immediate jeopardy” finding. The current PoC builds off of that extensive work.

Based on the CMS report, the plan is divided into the following four categories: transportation of patients, incident response, trainings and documentation. Examples of areas for improvement which OSH is addressing includes:

• policies and procedures for staff training to ensure patient safety and security and the safety of others during justice-involved patient transport and restraint/seclusion use
• elopement prevention to ensure the safe and appropriate care of patients
• alternatives or less restrictive interventions to restraints and seclusion and clear documentation that other interventions were ineffective
• improvements to quality assurance processes and management structures

“The safety of patients and employees will benefit from the ongoing refinements and additional enhancements included in the PoC,” said OSH Superintendent Dolly Matteucci. “Enhanced policies, more specific trainings, clear expectations and data driven evaluations create a foundation for individual and collective success.”

The PoC includes policy and procedure review and updates, attestation and training, and audits. Each section will have audits that will continue in a regular cadence, culminating in annual reviews once sufficient progress has been documented.

Beginning Feb. 25, surveyors representing CMS may return to validate that OSH has successfully implemented the PoC.

Oregon Faces Problems With Expanding Housing In Cities: Paying For Services For New Residents

Oregon, like our neighbors to north and south, is in the midst of an aggressive home building project. But we’re faced with a larger problem than either California and Washington when it comes to sustaining a growing population: Our local tax system can’t keep up with new development.

Here in Oregon, as we build new homes to house an expanding population, we won’t be able to pay for the services that keep our cities livable unless we update a tax structure that makes growth unaffordable within our urban growth boundaries.

I’m not referring to the supply of land or the cost of infrastructure, issues which are getting the attention they deserve, but to the ongoing revenues needed to sustain city services once new housing units are in place.

I was reminded of this problem recently when a group of billionaires filed an initiative with California’s Solano County to pave the way for a new city of 50,000 residents on mostly unoccupied grassland south of Sacramento. The backers of this “California Forever” demonstration city claim their project “will pay its own way from the tax revenue it generates.”

Checking the numbers, their claim looks plausible. California raises its property tax valuations for buyers of new and existing homes, passes on to local governments a share of its statewide sales tax collections and allows them to add a local surcharge to its sales tax rates.

And, Washington is a lot like California when it comes to new development. The state limits its local property tax rates but regularly updates its valuation of properties, both old and new alike. It also allows cities to piggyback on the state’s 6.5% sales tax with local rates that average another 2.0%.

In Oregon, by contrast, we maintain our below-market property tax valuations for buyers of new and existing homes and seem determined to live without a sales tax.

These differences are telling. Both California and Washington are able to capture revenue gains from new homeowners in amounts that at least come close to the cost of providing services for them. In Oregon, however, growth falls far short of paying for itself.

This problem has become most evident in Oregon’s fastest growing cities, from larger population centers like Bend and Salem to smaller towns throughout the Willamette Valley. In my local city of Independence, growth has been steady and well-planned, but its new homes are not generating the tax revenues needed to maintain its police patrols, parks and library.

Even since the passage of Measure 5 and Measure 50 in the 1990s, Oregon cities have faced a chronic revenue problem, patched over with fees on residents for services like water and sewer and payments gathered from outsiders via lodging and rental car taxes. But those patches have been wearing thin. And, growth only exacerbates this problem.

So, in what has become an ironic complication for our home building agenda, cities responding best to our housing shortage are paying the steepest price for their efforts.

For many years now, city officials who gather at the Oregon League of Cities have been discussing potential tax reforms. Some are inclined to pursue the California model of resetting property taxes to reflect market values when homes and other buildings are sold or built. But that would put them in a double bind politically. Any increase in property tax burdens for new buyers will make housing less affordable and exacerbate the inequity in costs borne by older, wealthier residents and younger, working families.

Earlier this month, the Governor’s Housing Production Advisory Council released a wish list of revenue options for financing new housing in the future. But their recommendations deal mostly with building new infrastructure and overlook the challenges that cities face in sustaining services for new residents.

Housing advocates and city officials should look to the state for more immediate and more feasible solutions, citing the precedence of what the state has done for another victim of our property tax limitations – our K-12 schools. Schools have overcome the constraints of our local property tax system with an ever-growing supply of state funds since the mid-1990s.

The city of Salem has started down this path. Following its voters’ rejection of a payroll tax to keep up with demands on its budget, Salem’s mayor is turning to the Legislature for help. Salem is something of a special case, because of the amount of untaxed state land within its borders. But, it’s just the first of many cities on the edge of a cliff, beyond which the Legislature offers the only relief in sight.

Cities can no longer fend for themselves, especially now that overcoming our housing shortage will require building the equivalent of a dozen new Independence-sized cities every year through the end of this decade.

The “California Forever” project probably wouldn’t be well received here in Oregon, even if our land use system allowed it. But it highlights important issues for managing growth in our state.

One is the need to overhaul our tax system. But that will take time. The other is more immediate.

As we ramp up our production of housing, we’ll have to work with the system we have and the revenues that flow from the growth of our economy if we want to maintain our land use system and our quality of life. That, in turn, will put the onus on the state to come up with some form of revenue sharing to support cities that are meeting our housing goals. Otherwise, solving our housing shortage will be a short-lived victory, if we can’t sustain the livability of our cities. (SOURCE)

Oregon Receives $60 Million For Rental Support And Social Services

The Biden administration announced this week it’s awarding more than $3 billion to thousands of programs nationwide to fight homelessness.

That amount, for 2003 Continuum of Care grants, marks a new high, the administration said.

“We are doing all we can to get people off the street and into permanent homes with access to services,” said Marcia Fudge, the Housing and Urban Development secretary in a release. “That is why we are making sure the service providers on the frontlines of this crisis have the resources they need.”

The grants include more than $60 million for Oregon nonprofits and other entities to support programs that house young people and others from Portland, Medford and Ashland to Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties. A total of 140 applicants won grants ranging from more than $8 million to $10,000. More than $50 million is allocated to current programs to keep them going, while more than $4 million is aimed at keeping young people housed. More than $2 million is for new initiatives in Clackamas, Lane, Marion, and Multnomah counties, along with about the same amount for planning initiatives.

Oregon’s six Democratic lawmakers in Congress – Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, Val Hoyle and Andrea Salinas – welcomed the money in a joint statement.

“These new and continuing awards are vital for communities and individuals in need of critical housing resources and support. I won’t stop working to ensure Oregonians in every corner of the state have access to safe, dependable, and affordable housing,” Merkley said.

A large share of the money is going to nonprofit and government programs in the Portland area.

Home Forward, the public housing authority for Multnomah County, won the biggest grant of nearly $8.4 million. The money will be used to fund several ongoing programs that currently serve nearly 500 households by helping them with rent and social services.

“We are very grateful to HUD for this vital funding support that allows us to keep up with rent increases while maintaining our current service levels for the nearly 500 households in our community who rely on this assistance,” Martha Calhoon, a spokesperson for Home Forward, said in a statement.

The programs help a range of low-income people, including those with chronic addictions or who’ve been chronically homeless, people with HIV who have a mental disability, veterans who’ve been homeless, households with at least one person with a disability and heads of households suffering from severe and persistent mental illness.

Most are on Medicaid, and they pay 30% of their adjusted gross income for rent. If they have no income, they pay nothing.

A total of 12 agencies involved with the grant provide housing, addiction treatment, mental health and other social services. Those agencies include Central City Concern, a large provider based in Portland; Multnomah County; Cascadia Health, one of the largest behavioral health care agencies in the state; and the Veterans Affairs.

Central City Concern won its own grant of $3.4 million, the second biggest. Spokesperson Juliana Lukasik said the money is dedicated to a program that provides long-term housing stability for people with high needs, including those with addictions, severe and persistent mental illness and the chronically homeless.

Those in the program pay 30% of their rent. Last year, the program served about 185 people, including nearly 160 who’ve been chronically homeless. Lukasik said about 60% had retained housing for more than five years while about 95% had stayed housed for more more than one year.186 client served

Like Home Forward, Central City Concern works with other agencies, including the Native American Rehabilitation Association, to provide health care and other services, and it uses people who’ve experienced homelessness themselves as peers to help those in the program.

The third biggest grant, nearly $3 million, went to the Washington County Department of Housing Services. A spokeswoman, Emily Roots, said in a statement that the money will be used to help house about 200 households. To qualify, participants must have a disability and be chronically homeless at the time of acceptance into the program.

They are required to pay 30% of the rent, and they’re housed in apartments, Roots said. A variety of services are offered such as behavioral health treatment, aging and disability services, HIV/AIDS services and general case management. (SOURCE)

Treasury Proactively Returning $10 Million in Unclaimed Funds to Oregonians

Individuals will receive funds through the ‘Checks Without Claims’ initiative in February

Salem, OR—Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read announced today Treasury will be proactively returning approximately $10 million in unclaimed property this month to individuals as part of the agency’s 2024 ‘Checks Without Claims’ initiative.

“We’re excited to reconnect thousands of individuals with their unclaimed funds without requiring any action on their part,” Treasurer Read said. “In addition to collecting and safeguarding Oregonians’ unclaimed property, Treasury is committed to returning these assets and helping to bolster our citizen’s financial well-being.”

Through ‘Checks Without Claims’, Treasury will proactively disburse payments to verified owners of unclaimed property reported to the state’s Unclaimed Property Program in 2021 and 2022. Payments, via check, will be mailed to individuals this month and accompanied by an additional confirmation letter from the Treasurer.

In 2023, Treasury’s Unclaimed Property Program conducted ‘Checks Without Claims’ and reconnected more than 18,000 individuals – from Oregon and 47 other states – with their unclaimed funds.

With over $1 billion in unclaimed funds currently held by the state, ‘Checks Without Claims’ is one of many efforts to reconnect more Oregonians with their unclaimed money and property. Payments distributed through ‘Checks Without Claims’ represent unclaimed property reported to the state in 2021 and 2022 by various businesses and organizations that were unable to return funds to the rightful owner. Common examples of unclaimed property include uncashed checks, forgotten bank accounts, tax refunds, credit balances, investment accounts, payroll checks, refunds, and more.

Nearly one in seven people in the United States has unclaimed property. To help raise awareness around unclaimed funds, Treasury joined programs across the country this week to celebrate National Unclaimed Property Day, held annually on February 1. In fiscal year 2023, more than $5.4 billion dollars in unclaimed property was returned to its rightful owners according to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators.

Typically, individuals need to file a claim with Oregon’s Unclaimed Property Program and complete the verification process to receive the funds they are owed. Treasury conducts ‘Checks Without Claims’ to proactively verify some owners of unclaimed assets and facilitate payments directly to them. Checks distributed will vary in amount between $50 and $10,000.

Searching for unclaimed funds is free and easy. Interested individuals are encouraged to visit Treasury’s unclaimed property website at unclaimed.oregon.gov.

More information about ‘Checks Without Claims’ is available online at https://unclaimed.oregon.gov/app/checks-without-cl… Questions about unclaimed funds or “Checks without Claims” can be directed to Oregon’s Unclaimed Property Program via email claims@ost.state.or.us or phone at 503-378-4000.

About Oregon State Treasury
Oregon State Treasury improves the financial well-being of all Oregonians. We provide low-cost banking, debt management, and investment programs for governments and empower Oregonians to invest in themselves and their loved ones through the Oregon College Savings Plan, Oregon ABLE Savings Plan, and OregonSaves.