State senator to come up with accountability recommendations for ODOT funding bill

Yahoo

16-02-2025

Oregon Senate President Rob Wagner and Speaker of the House Julie Fahey announced they tapped a state senator to develop accountability recommendations for legislation funding the Oregon Department of Transportation Department.
The announcement was made days after the Statesman Journal published an investigation, which found, among other things, that touted accountability measures in a 2017 transportation funding bill were not met.
Senator Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, is a co-vice chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation and will lead creation of a draft accountability plan to be presented to the committee in March.
"I know that we have a credibility problem," Starr said.
"We can't just throw more money at the Department of Transportation and assume that they're gonna perform better," he said.
Wagner said accountability is a key piece of a successful transportation package.
"For me, it's a little bit of a lessons learned," Wagner said. "I wasn't in the Legislature (when HB 2017 was passed), but sometimes you have to trust that you need to shift focus and you need to put additional attention on this space, so that's really what we're gonna do."
Accountability has been part of the committee's focus all along, said Rep. Susan McLain, D-Hillsboro, a co-chair on the committee.
"As far as I can see, it's business as usual and we're gonna do a good job of making sure that we review what we've done in the last package and see where we are gonna make even better choices and better investments in the things that our public have told us that they want," McLain said.
The Statesman Journal was told Gov. Tina Kotek, Fahey, D-Eugene, and co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation, Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, were unavailable for comment.
Starr was elected to the House in 1998 and served as a state senator for District 15 from 2003 until 2015. He was a city councilor in Dundee before being reelected in the Legislature in November 2024 to represent Senate District 12, which includes parts of Polk and Yamhill counties and communities such as Dallas, Sheridan and McMinnville.
He co-founded a Christian preschool and has worked as a fence contractor.
Starr's seat was previously held by Brian Boquist, who was a co-vice chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation Preservation and Modernization when HB 2017 was created.
Details about the accountability recommendations, including who will make up the group that makes them, are not yet decided, Starr said, but he emphasized a role for Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany.
"She's been there over the last few years," he said. "I'm coming back into the process. She's put in the work and our staff have put in the work."
Boshart Davis is a co-vice chair of the committee.
"We know that cost of living is paramount. It's our job to one, take that to heart and know that that's important, so we cannot in good conscience say revenue raising is our only option," Boshart Davis told the Statesman Journal. "Even if all of this had not come to light, and even if we didn't know that there was accountability problems, we still know that cost of living is top priority."
Anastasia Mason covers state government for the Statesman Journal. Reach her at [e-mail] or 971-208-5615.
This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Lawmakers call for Oregon Department of Transportation reforms