Tax bill creates 22 new admin positions

Democrats' sputtering special session start reminiscent of failed 1992 session

SEIU 503 director Melissa Unger addresses the media at the Capitol Friday. SEIU represents some 2,500 of ODOT’s 4,800 workers and is a close ally and campaign funder of Governor Tina Kotek. (SEIU 503 Facebook page)

Passage of Governor Tina Kotek’s $5.8 billion tax and fee hike package would instantly create 22 new state administrative positions across two state agencies and at least two new consultant contracts according to a staff report for a transportation committee hearing rescheduled for noon today after Democrats failed to convene the hearing Friday afternoon as promised. The report says the package would create an additional 13 agency positions in the next biennium.

According to the report, prepared by the Legislative Fiscal Office, the state would spend $10.2 million to implement the tax and fee hike bill in the 2025-2027 biennium (Oregon budgets in two-year increments, each called a biennium) and $17.9 million in the 2027-2029 biennium.

Twenty of the new positions created by the bill immediately would be in the Oregon Department of Transportation, and two in the Secretary of State’s office. The new ODOT positions are not for snow plow drivers or pothole patchers, but instead for administrative positions to implement the law. The new permanent, full-time ODOT positions would be:

• One permanent Operations and Policy Analyst position and one temporary Program Analyst position with a total average annual cost of $222,307;

• Six positions in ODOT’s transit-funding department, at a total average annual cost of $592,797, including two Program Analyst 3 postions, two Program Analyst 2 positions and one Program Analyst 1 position;

• Ten positions to implement changes to the Road Usage Charge program, which charges electric and high-mileage vehicle owners a fee in lieu of gas tax, with a total annual average cost of $754,805, with positions to include a Business Operations Manager, a Project Manager, a Public Affairs Specialist, three Operations and Policy Analysts, a Compliance Specialist and a Program Analyst; and

• Two positions to implement the bill’s changes to the state diesel tax, at a total annual average cost of $245,565.

(Source: staff budget report; total annual average cost includes salary, benefits and other direct costs of an employee, plus “position-related services and supplies.”)

In addition to the new ODOT positions, the bill would create two new positions in the Secretary of State’s office, a State Senior Auditor and a State Principal Auditor at a total annual cost of $239,723. The bill provides for more audits of ODOT, which has suffered from large cost overruns and over-projecting revenue by $1.1 billion.

Kotek has said the tax hike is necessary to fund core transportation functions such as snow plowing, and to avoid layoffs of ODOT maintenance workers. In a letter earlier this week, Kotek wrote the additional revenue would “go directly toward road maintenance and agency operations.”

Funds for the new position come from the state’s general fund and its “other funds” category, which includes various sources of revenue including gas tax. The bill shifts $800,000 from the $100,000,000 emergency fund to the general fund to backfill general fund expenditures for implementing the bill. Republicans have proposed using larger portions of the emergency fund to sustain ODOT without tax increases.

Melissa Unger, the director of Oregon’s branch of the Service Employees International Union, which represents some 2,500 of ODOT’s approximately 4,800 workers, appeared at a rally at the Capitol Friday in an attempt to whip up support for the tax hike. SEIU is among Kotek’s closest political allies, and obtains its income from dues paid by worker members at ODOT and other agencies, a portion of which become campaign contributions and other help to Kotek and other Oregon Democrats.

A sputtering special session start

Democrats’ plan for a clean and speedy Labor Day Weekend special session crumbled with at least one Democratic House member’s reported absence Friday and no public action yesterday. Today’s hearing, an unusual Sunday affair, is the continuation of a hearing begun Monday, during which legislators heard from state officials and lobbyists in favor of the tax hike, and from the public, with the vast majority of those testifying in opposition.

Kotek has been hinting at a special session since immediately after Democrats’ last transportation tax package failed at the end of the 2025 regular legislative session in June. She officially called the special session July 22. Democrats, who have long attacked Republican legislators who have “walked out” of past legislative sessions to deprive the majority of a quorum to do business, assured the media they would have enough of their members present to conduct business in the special session.

A Facebook post I saw yesterday.

Democrats hold a 3/5 supermajority in both chambers of the legislature, enough to theoretically pass the tax hike without GOP votes. However, a group of moderate Democrats have expressed anonymous and unspecified concerns with the bill. Those concerns led to the demise of the last bill, in June, and may be contributing to the rocky road of the special session so far.

Precedent for failed tax-hiking special sessions

In July 1992, Governor Barbara Roberts called the legislature into special session for the purpose of increasing taxes. However, bad economic news, Republican opposition and voter distrust of Roberts herself forced adjournment of the session after only three days, without a tax hike. The only legislation passed in the 1992 special session was a resolution to adjourn the legislature.

Today is day three of the 2025 special session. Oregon just received a bad economic report, which shows the state lagging behind in economic growth. Today, the committee will consider a resolution to adjourn the special session, which Democrats intend to pass once they’ve passed the tax hike and budget bills.

Will history repeat itself?