Columbia County Commissioner Tony Hyde, who also serves on the Oregon Business Development Commission, testified before the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Transportation and Economic Development on Thursday April 7. He spoke passionately about the importance of investing in economic development even when other budgets are being heavily cut. He emphasized that economic development is important for our tomorrow, and major change can occur during catastrophic events.   Businesses from around the state shared their impressive stories about how the agency made a difference to help create jobs. 

AOC joined a parade of witnesses from across the political spectrum speaking in support of the Governor's Recommended Budget for the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD). The Ways and Means Natural Resources Subcommittee on Thursday heard resounding support for holding the line on further cuts in OWRD capacity, in spite of economic conditions. This unanimity is a relatively rare occurrence in budget deliberations. Maintaining a budget for OWRD that permits the agency to function in the short term and add capacity later is an important focus of AOC this session.

County Health Rankings by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute are out! Earlier this week, the OPB program "Think Out Loud" featured the ratings. 

On Wednesday, April 6th we received a copy of  Governor Kitzhaber's letter to Legislative leadership entitled "Statement of Principles on Land Use Legislation". The letter outlines support for job creation, community development and the state's land use system. The letter recognizes that work needs to be undertaken regarding the interplay between land use and transportation, i.e. the Oregon Highway Plan and the Transportation Planning Rule.

The Governor's letter also indicates support for concepts which would create a "one stop" permit process for a limited number of key industrial development projects on lands already planned and zoned for industrial uses, and protect a limited number of key existing regional industrial areas from future actions that would damage job creation potential.

Finally, the letter describes five areas/circumstances where the governor would not be supportative of land use legislation:

• Legislation providing an "end run" around the existing ways to expand urban growth boundaries, particularly expansions where there has not been a showing that the lands are needed, and a showing that the appropriate local entities can provide the services and facilities needed for the lands to develop efficiently.
• Legislative entitlements for specific development projects, particularly where there is no demonstrated public benefit and no opportunity for local input. 
• Legislative entitlements for new uses on farm or forest lands that would create significant conflicts for our agricultural or timber industries.
• Changes to our land use procedures that would disenfranchise citizens from participating in local or state reviews of proposed development.
• Legislation that ties the hands of LCDC and/or the OTC and prevents them from developing longterm fixes to current conflicts facing our land use and transportation planning systems.

The House Business and Labor Committee held a hearing on Friday morning to discuss issues with the Public Employmee Retirement System (PERS). Legislative Counsel provided an overview of many of the legal issues associated with PERS and the committee listened to bills related to the Individual Account Program (IAP) and the "employee pick-up", ending legislators' ability to participate in PERS, and retirees' being re-hired part-time after leaving full-time employment (the so-called "1039 exceptions"). 

The committee also heard testimony on a bill addressing the status of out-of-state retirees who don't pay Oregon income tax but receive an increased benefit that is also extended to those who do pay Oregon income tax. Of interest to counties was HB 3218, which in its current form would cap the employer contribution to the IAP at three percent. A proposed amendment would allow more flexibility to the collective bargaining process by allowing an employer contribution to be anywhere from zero to six percent. The hearing closed with no action taken on any of the bills and the fate of any changes to PERS uncertain.

There's been some great news out of Washington, DC this week (seriously). County payments have been recognized as a priority!The House Budget Committee puts the reauthorization of SRS in the Reserves and Contingencies portion of the committee's proposed FY 2012 Budget. That essentially means that while offsets must be found for the reauthorization, budgeteers can look outside of the narrow natural resources areas and use other areas to find the offsets.

The hard work of finding appropriate offset funding continues, but the effort is made that much easier by inclusion in the Reserves section, a giant step forward in the legislative process in D.C. SRS reauthorization can be found in Section 306 of the proposed House Concurrent Resolution.

Bottom line, we're in the House GOP Budget, we're in the President's proposed budget and we're still moving forward.

Multnomah County needs 475 volunteers to help the estimated 3,000 visitors who will be in Portland for the NACo Annual Conference in July (15 to 17).Volunteers are needed to help guide the visitors from across the nation to public transportation from downtown hotels to the Convention Center, at the Convention Center, at two big social events and for a host of other duties. 

To volunteer, just fill out the volunteer registration form.For more information contact Theresa Sullivan, Multnomah County's NACo volunteer coordinator(503-988-3635).Cara, Laura and Eric in the AOC office can also help you with your questions.