The transportation bill Gov. Tina Kotek successfully pushed through the Legislature last week is expected to raise Oregonians’ costs by around $800 million in the current budget cycle.
That price tag is a touch higher if you figure in the cost of passing the bill in the first place.
A star-crossed special legislative session that officially concluded last Wednesday will cost taxpayers more than $270,000, according to administrators at the Capitol. The total could top $280,000 once lawmakers submit mileage reimbursement requests for traveling to and from Salem.
The cost – more than three times what lawmakers were expecting when they gaveled in – will top that of any special session in more than a decade. It’s the result of bad luck and what legislative attorneys say are inflexible laws about how lawmakers are paid.
Kotek and legislative leaders were hoping for a quick session when lawmakers convened on Aug. 29, the Friday of Labor Day weekend.
But while Kotek’s bill, House Bill 3991, passed the House as expected, it sat mired in the Senate for weeks. Democrats in the chamber were forced to delay a vote twice while they waited for a sick member to be well enough to make the trip. Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, experienced complications following a planned surgery, and was hospitalized.
The chamber didn’t ultimately vote on the proposal until Sept. 29 – a full month after the Legislature convened.
Lawmakers spent much of the session doing zero legislating. But because state law dictates that members of the House and Senate must receive a $178 per diem when in session, they were paid anyway.
In the Senate, chamber rules ensured those payments went out to all 30 senators every day.
The House, which had already passed the bill, still had to gavel in every four days to satisfy parliamentary requirements while it waited on the Senate. Under House rules, its 60 members were paid any day the gavel fell – a total of 10 times during the entire session.
According to Joshua Sweet, the Legislature’s financial services manager, the total cost of per diems is an estimated $272,340. (Sweet said it would be weeks before he could officially confirm that amount.) If all lawmakers claimed mileage reimbursement – a step that is not required – it would tack another $11,327 onto the session’s bill, Sweet said in an email.
The inflated payments brought on by Gorsek’s illness have inspired grumbling in some corners of the Capitol. In the Senate, Majority Leader Kayse Jama, D-Portland, called on members to donate any money paid for days they didn’t meet in Salem to charity.
Republicans had no such expectation from the top.
“Senate Republican members can decide for themselves,” Minority Leader Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, told reporters Sept. 29.
Whatever they decide, the steep cost of the session is awkward, given the costs imposed by Kotek’s bill.
HB 3991 is expected to raise $4.3 billion in its first decade, via hikes to the state gas tax, registration fees, and a temporary doubling of a payroll tax that pays for public transit services. It will also require drivers of electric vehicles and hybrids to begin paying for each mile they drive.
Republicans have vowed to refer those tax increases to the November 2026 ballot.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.