SALEM — Oregon’s booming tax revenues have exceeded economists’ expectations for years, and lawmakers opened the 2020 short session hoping to spend as much as $500 million from the windfall on critical needs.
The state’s understaffed child welfare program, overburdened psychiatric hospital, nearly broke forestry department and other programs all badly need the money, lawmakers said. House Speaker Tina Kotek wants $120 million to pay for shelters and other services to address the state’s homelessness crisis, including using debt to pay for affordable housing preservation and construction.
Now it looks increasingly unlikely those priorities will receive funds, because nearly all the Republicans in the Senate and House walked out of the Capitol this week to halt a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade bill. In doing so, they are preventing Democrats and the two Republicans who stuck around — Rep. Cheri Helt and Sen. Tim Knopp, both of Bend — from passing bills to appropriate the money, because they cannot reach the state’s constitutional two-thirds quorum requirement necessary to conduct business.
On Tuesday, the outlook to resolve the standoff did not look good, as Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger Jr. told reporters that most of his caucus is unwilling to return to the Capitol unless Democrats deep-six the climate bill.
“Well, the bill dies somehow,” Baertschiger said of what would secure Senate Republicans’ return. “The goal is: One, kill cap-and-trade; two, send it to the ballot.”
Democrats and their supporters, including public employee union representatives, pushed back at a rally on the Capitol steps Tuesday, saying they were finished offering deals and compromises to Republicans.
“We’re done,” said House Majority Leader Barbara Smith Warner, D-Portland. “We cannot put up with this.”
If Republicans continue to deny Democrats a quorum for the remaining 12 days of the legislative session, the hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipated windfall revenues would likely remain untouched until July 2021 when the next biennial state budget would take effect.
Although a group of lawmakers known as the “emergency board” handles pressing budget requests between sessions, they have a limited fund to tap. It stands at $75 million, Legislative Fiscal Officer Ken Rocco told The Oregonian/OregonLive via email. Even with another $500 million or more sitting unallocated in state coffers, however, “the Emergency Board cannot touch money in the state’s general fund not appropriated to the emergency fund,” Rocco wrote.
Universities were also anticipating lawmakers would approve roughly $300 million in bond-backed debt for renovation and expansion projects around the state, including schools in Republican districts such as the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls. “The Emergency Board cannot approve new bonding projects, but can increase expenditure limitations for agencies that are receiving bond proceeds,” Rocco wrote. “Only the Legislature can approve bonding authorizations.”
One other constituency affected by the walkout could be flooding victims in the Pendleton area. Although an emergency declaration freed up immediate funds to help, Gov. Kate Brown wants lawmakers to pass an additional $11.65 million in long-term recovery money. That would likely be included in another budget bill.
On Tuesday, Baertschiger blamed Brown for not finding another way to get the money to eastern Oregon. “
“She’s playing politics with people’s lives, and you who bring the light to the public should be outraged by that,” Baertschiger said to reporters, adding that he believed Brown had discretionary funds she could use.
That is incorrect, according to a spokeswoman for Brown. “The Governor does not have $12 million in funding at her discretion, and if she did the first thing she would do is use it to relieve the pressure on the community of Pendleton,” Kate Kondayen wrote, adding that “there is currently not an emergency relief rainy-day fund in state government.”
“As a stopgap measure, we are researching the viability of covering the levee repair using Business Oregon infrastructure funds, which comprises $1.8 million of the package, but we know that the rest of the funding would have to be approved by the Legislature,” Kondayen wrote.
— Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 | @hborrud
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