The 76th Legislative Assembly has passed historic health care legislation this session to help create a health insurance exchange and to begin transforming and improving care under the Oregon Health Plan. The next steps will be to deliver plans to lawmakers by February, 2011.

Success will depend on public participation and gathering the best thinking in our state. To that end, Gov. Kitzhaber is calling for nominations for people to participate in the process. There are opportunities for short-term service on HB 3650 work groups and longer term service on the Oregon Health Insurance Exchange Board of Directors.

WORK GROUPS: OREGON HEALTH SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION - HB 3650

Deadline for application: 9 a.m., Friday, July 15, 2011

OREGON HEALTH INSURANCE EXCHANGE BOARD OF DIRECTORS - SB 99

Deadline for application: 9 a.m., Friday, July 15, 2011

Partnership for Rural America Campaign Manager Marc Kelley and NACo's Ryan Yates provided an update on the SRS reauthorization effort and PILT information during a well attended phone conference of commissioners, judges and partners Friday morning.

There will be a hearing of the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources on July 14th in Washington, D.C.  The House is considering legislation that would seriously address forest management issues and a reauthorization of SRS. That hearing, under the chairmanship of U.S. Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT), will focus on active forest management issues.  We've been told there could be an update on that hearing at the NACo Conference in Portland. 

The Senate is still negotiating dollar amounts for a future reauthorization along with funding years and formulas. Those discussions are underway at the member to member and staff to staff levels. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is in the thick of the discussions and working extremely hard for Oregon counties and schools as is his staff.

Obviously, the two chambers see reauthorization in a different light. That's happened before, but not with one chamber being controlled by one party and the other chamber being controlled by the other party. We've seen differences between the House and Senate before, but this current set up presents unique challenges.

PILT payments still have one more year under the current appropriation. Unlike SRS, PILT is a mandatory program that does not have to be reauthorized, but does have to be re-appropriated. The last appropriation fully funded PILT for the first time. NACo's Ryan Yates reported that a fly-in for PILT has been scheduled for September 14th. 

Members of the Western Caucus in the U.S. House will meet with county officials who attend the fly-in to discuss efforts for future PILT funding. 

In addition, Mr. Yates reported that Congressional leadership will decide how the re-appropriation effort for PILT will move forward in Congress and when. The fly-in will emphasize the importance of PILT, especially for western states.

The Partnership for Rural America campaign Website has been updated with new figures from the Forest Service. We highly recommend that you spend a few minutes with the Website - it is a valuable resource for information on the campaign. 

The Oregonian recently carried an article about the Clatsop State Forest. Despite an opening paragraph that is slightly misleading, the rest of the story is well done and well reported. 

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) asks for your help informing the public about an administrative claims process set up to compensate Hispanic and women farmers and ranchers who assert they were discriminated against when seeking USDA farm loans between 1981 and 2000. Because this is an administrative action, and not a class-action lawsuit, many potential claimants may not be aware they have the opportunity to file a claim. Please help us spread the news, along with the Web site for the claims process: https://farmerclaims.gov/FarmerClaims/farmer.do.  There is a poster in English and Spanish available to post where you see fit. 

NACo members (that includes all Oregon counties) are invited to attend steering committee meetings held in conjunction with the annual meeting free of charge. The committees meet on Friday, July 15 and Saturday, July 16 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.

To attend the conference general sessions, workshops, breakout sessions, special events, trade show, task force meetings, etcetera you must be registered for the full conference. You may register at NACo's Web site or register at the conference itself.

If you are interested in membership on any of NACo's steering committees please let Mike McArthur or Cara Fischer  know before the annual conference and they will get you signed up. You may attend any committee meeting without being a committee member. 

Have you registered for the NACo Annual Conference? Register today, for your national association's annual conference in Multnomah County, Oregon, July 15 -19.

The conference offers great opportunities to:

• Network with your peers
• Bring solutions home to your county
• Hear from expert speakers that will inspire and educate
• Learn from more than 30 educational workshops, and
• Meet with suppliers that can provide you cost saving opportunities on services and products
• Become familiar with Social Media

Questions? Please contact the NACo Meetings Department at nacomeetings@naco.org.

We hope to see you in Multnomah County (Portland) Oregon!   

Ready to showcase Oregon to the nation? The National Association of Counties Annual Conference will be held in Multnomah County starting July 15th. Volunteers are needed to help guide the estimated 3,000 county visitors around Portland and Oregon. Please consider using some of your spare time to help make their visit to our state and region a memorable one.  

Becoming a volunteer is easy. Just register. Volunteers will get training and a t-shirt among other things for their time. If you have questions, please contact Theresa Sullivan at Multnomah County. Her phone number is 503-988-3655. 

Quality of Life for Oregonians: An intersection of county services

The AOC 2011 Summer Summit is now open for registration!

Join county colleagues in an extensive exploration of how a myriad of county programs intersect to improve quality of life for your constituents. The conference focuses on:

• Working across multiple systems to meet the demand for efficient & effective services
• Leadership while confronting barriers and seeking opportunities
• The challenges and opportunities of prisoner reentry in your community
• The county role in Oregon's new early learning initiative
• What health care transformation mean to you and your constituents 

Video and Desktop Conferencing Available Now!

Missing

A travel mug, silver in color, with green lettering on the side.  Lost somewhere between the Local Government Center parking lot and the third floor of the same building. Please contact Paul Snider if you have any information to its whereabouts. If you don't have any information, call him anyway and tell him how sorry you are his travel mug went missing. 

This Week's Contributors 

Laura Cleland, Cara Fischer, Ann Hanus, Mike McArthur and Eric Schmidt all contributed to this edition of Oregon Trails. They made the mistake of coming to the office on a Friday after sine die and before the Fourth of July. Dedication.   

Have a Great Holiday Weekend!