By PETER WONG/Oregon Capital Bureau
Oregon lawmakers have approved money to start paying wildfire costs and helping homeowners rebuild, add workers to process unemployment claims and update technology and expand capacity for coronavirus testing.
They did so Friday during an Emergency Board meeting that lasted more than three hours. The board’s 20 members handle budget matters between sessions of the full Legislature.
Though the board has met monthly since the 2020 session adjourned March 5 — and twice in August — Friday’s session was the first after the board committed all of Oregon’s $1.4 billion share of federal pandemic aid under the CARES Act.
The board enabled the Oregon Department of Forestry to tap $75 million, instead of the original $20 million, to start paying suppression costs of the wildfires that have swept through about 1 million acres of forests since Labor Day. As many as three dozen fires burned at once across Oregon.
Recent rains have helped firefighters make gains. But according to the agency, six major fires — each 100,000 acres or greater — continued to burn as of Friday at varying degrees of containment. The official death toll is nine.
Prior to Labor Day, 2020 wildfire suppression costs were estimated at $31 million, with the state on the hook for about $24.5 million after federal aid.
Officials have said the costs of Oregon wildfire suppression will approach $100 million. Though about half that total will be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), State Forester Peter Daugherty said his agency will have to pay the bills pending reimbursement.
“With this kind of a fire season, we have started conversations with our federal partners about completely revamping the approach we take with the expected amount of cost processing that we are going to have to do,” Daugherty said.
The agency had a backlog of about $100 million in costs from previous wildfires. It has whittled that number down to $44 million. Daugherty said the agency has to improve its recovery process.
Housing aid
Meanwhile, lawmakers approved $10 million, up from the $2 million originally proposed, for a program that gives grants of $7,000 to low-income homeowners for wildfire recovery after they tap private insurance and federal disaster aid.
The Aug. 10 special session of the Legislature actually had abolished the program, effective on May 31, 2021, because it had seen little use. But after the Labor Day wildfires, the Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services received 315 applications for the $197,301 remaining in the program. The number has now jumped to around 600.
Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said he and then-House Republican Leader Mike McLane started the program in 2015 to offer help to low-income homeowners — households under 200% of the federal poverty level — who did not qualify for other aid, such as private insurance or federal disaster aid. Such aid to individuals under FEMA kicks in only after private insurance does, and it is limited to $35,500 for housing replacement or repairs and $35,500 for other expenses.
Courtney acknowledged that $2 million would cover only the initial group of about 300 applicants, but he wanted to start with an existing program.
House Republican Leader Christine Drazan of Canby then proposed to draw $10 million from the state emergency fund for the program.
In a statement after the meeting, Drazan said: “Oregonians who have lost everything in these fires need not only our financial support today, but our ongoing commitment to do everything in our power to help them as they work to recover and rebuild their homes and lives.”
“But this program is not going to be the cure” for wildfire relief, said Andrea Bell, director of housing stabilization for the state housing agency.
Employment money
In other actions, the board approved more money for the Employment Department for these purposes:
- $421.4 million in federal funds for six weeks of unemployment benefit payments under the Lost Wages Assistance program. Those payments, which come from $44 billion drawn from FEMA, are scheduled to start at the end of September. They will cover the period from July 26 — when the extra $600-per-week payments under the CARES Act stopped in Oregon — through Sept. 5.
- $31.8 million in federal funds for 322 limited-duration workers to process unemployment claims.
- $8.1 million in federal funds for 94 limited-duration workers to process claims from self-employed and gig workers that the CARES Act made newly eligible for federal unemployment benefits. Although most claims under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program have received initial processing, nearly 50,000 await adjudication to make sure they do not qualify for regular benefits drawn from the state trust fund.
- $1.2 million in other funds for 16 permanent workers to help with modernization of the agency’s technology, which dates back three decades and relies on a mainframe system that uses a computer language dating back to 1959. The agency has announced it has chosen a vendor (FAST Enterprises) to start negotiations on a contract for a replacement system.
“Despite the extra hiring and despite the improvements, we have thousands of people in adjudication and we have thousands of people who have not gotten benefits yet,” House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat from Portland and the board’s co-chairwoman, said after the votes. “Every day, we hear a story from an Oregonian whose life has been disrupted because they have yet to receive benefits.
“I hope we continue to be on a path of progress. But I do not think our approval of this measure today should be seen as satisfaction with the progress of that department.”
Some more money for testing
Oregon lawmakers approved $5.5 million, well short of the $29.4 million requested by the Oregon Health Authority, to take preliminary steps toward increasing the state’s capacity to test for the COVID-19 coronavirus.
The Emergency Board also asked the agency to return in December with a report on next steps.
The agency sought the larger amount as part of a plan to increase laboratory testing capacity at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. The number of statewide tests would rise from about 7,000 to 17,000; the increase would take into account a potential surge in infections this winter.
Since Jan. 26, when Oregon recorded its first COVID-19 case, the agency has reported 32,581 cases as of Saturday, and 546 deaths. There have been 661,300 tests as of Friday.
Of the requested total, $6.5 million would be for construction at the University of Oregon, $370,000 at Oregon State University, $500,000 for computer software and $22 million for expanded collections and testing. The UO campus does not have capacity for the scale of testing envisioned; OSU does, through its Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and a partnership with Willamette Valley Toxicology Laboratory.
But the request ran into objections from some lawmakers, notably Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, who asked why Oregon Health & Science University — the state’s largest teaching hospital and medical research center — was not involved. She also said the request lacked information about why the state public health laboratory in Hillsboro could not be expanded for that purpose.
“This is more of a good idea than a fully vetted proposal,” she said.
The Legislative Fiscal Office, which does budget analyses for lawmakers, came up with the smaller recommendation.
In the end, Johnson was joined in opposition to the smaller request by four other legislators — Democratic Rep. David Gomberg of Otis and Republican Sens. Lynn Findley of Vale, Fred Girod of Lyons and Chuck Thomsen of Hood River.
- The Oregon Capital Bureau in Salem is staffed by reporters from EO Media and Pamplin Media Group and provides state government and political news to their newspapers and media around Oregon, including YachatsNews.com