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Oregon lawmakers tuck $1 billion into late-session ‘Christmas tree' spending bill
A pile of $100 bills. (Photo by Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)
Oregon lawmakers on Tuesday approved $1 billion in an end-of-session budget bill, adding some last-minute cash for employee raises, natural disasters, parks and more.
House Bill 5006, known around the Capitol as the 'Christmas tree bill' because it's weighed down with spending like a fir with ornaments, is a chance for lawmakers, agencies and lobbyists to snag some extra money for projects that didn't get much attention earlier in the session. The budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee approved it without objection or discussion on Tuesday, and it now heads to the full House.
The 95-page bill lists projects throughout the state, with money provided for a food bank in Salem, a public market in Portland and a historic abandoned U.S. Forest Service ranger station in Wallowa.
Here are some highlights of the proposed funding:
$375 million for wage increases, including $300 million for changes to state employee compensation plans and $75 million for raises tied to collective bargaining for contracted workers who aren't directly employed by the state. House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, objected to that money being included during an earlier Tuesday meeting of the Capital Construction subcommittee.'I always find it an interesting dynamic when we put into our budgets our anticipated amount that we're going to be negotiating for for public employee raises,' she said. 'It doesn't really feel like it's a negotiation at that point.'
$45 million for the Willamette Falls Inter-Tribal Access Project, which aims to restore public access to Willamette Falls, a horseshoe-shaped waterfall that's the second-largest falls by volume in the United States.
$10 million to create the James Beard Public Market in downtown Portland.
$8 million to replace Gresham's Fire Station 74 and $3 million for a new fire station in the McMinnville Fire District.
$6 million for the Marion-Polk Food Share in Salem to expand a food bank warehouse and add a kitchen for Meals on Wheels, a service that delivers meals to housebound seniors.
$4.6 million for soil and water conservation districts in Crook, Deschutes, Harney, Jefferson, Klamath, Lake and Wheeler counties to remove invasive Western Juniper threatening water resources and ecological health in the high desert.
$3 million for the Portland Business Alliance Charitable Institute for festivals in the Tom McCall Waterfront Park.
$2 million for farmworker disaster relief.
$1.5 million for the Museum at Warm Springs to update its sole permanent exhibit, which hasn't been updated since the museum opened in 1993. Lawmakers on the budget-writing committee visited Warm Springs this spring for their first-ever budget hearing on tribal lands.
$400,000 for the Wallowa History Center to continue rehabilitating the Bear Sleds Ranger Station house as a museum charting the history of one of Oregon's most remote areas.
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