House Republicans propose cutting services and staff, not raising taxes, to pay for Oregon road upkeep

By DIRK VANDERHART/Oregon Public Broadcasting

SALEM — Republican lawmakers in the Oregon House have unveiled their preferred response to a road maintenance backlog that state and local transportation officials say must be addressed this year.

Their solution: Cutting or repurposing more than $730 million in state funding currently reserved for things like public transit, bicycle projects and agency staff. Much of that money would then be spent on nuts-and-bolts road work.

“Republicans across the building share the value of ensuring that Oregonians don’t pay more at the pump and that we call on this agency to tighten its belt,” House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, told reporters at a press conference in front of Oregon Department of Transportation Headquarters. “This proposal is intended to advance that conversation with some very clear specifics.”

As a whole, the House Republican framework is more of a rhetorical device than a realistic vision of what lawmakers will pass.

If implemented, it would lead to deep service cuts at public transit agencies around the state, slash ODOT’s budgeted workforce by hundreds and result in less funding for things such as electric vehicle rebates and projects that encourage biking and walking. All of those ideas are likely to be deeply unpopular with supermajority Democrats, who will have final say over what appears in any bill.

At the same time, Republicans say their proposal achieves what’s important: finding meaningful money to plow into road upkeep without raising taxes. The plan also proposes issuing bonds to pay for unfinished highway megaprojects, including a project to widen Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter in Portland.

The proposal is a pointed response to an ambitious road-funding framework issued by top Democrats earlier this month. That proposal, essentially the party’s first draft, would hike or create roughly a dozen taxes and fees — including an eventual 50% hike to the state’s 40-cent-per-gallon gas tax — in order to generate around $2 billion or more in new revenue for roads each two-year budget.

“My Democratic colleagues only recommended almost $2 billion in tax increases, and that’s not where we start,” said state Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, the top House Republican on transportation matters. “We start with how can we be efficient, how can we stay within our budget, how can we look at core mission?”

Meanwhile, House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, suggested her party was confident in its proposal.

“The leaders of the Joint Transportation Committee have spent months — and, in many cases, years — doing the hard work to improve and modernize how we protect Oregon’s roads and bridges, ensuring every Oregonian can get where they need to go safely and efficiently,” Fahey said in a statement. She added: “We look forward to passing a transportation package this session that meets the needs of every Oregon community.”

• Repurposing a 0.1% tax that Oregon workers pay out of their paychecks in order to fund public transit. The payroll tax was created by the Legislature in 2017 and has become a major source of funding for transit agencies, which have been adamant that they face major cuts without an increase this year. Instead, Republicans say the money — around $300 million a budget cycle — should be spent on road upkeep. “We’re suggesting you go back to pre-2017,” Boshart Davis said, suggesting local governments, strapped for cash themselves, could pay for transit services.
• Pulling funding for hundreds of positions that are sitting vacant within ODOT. Rather than filling those roles, Republicans say the state could direct more than $68 million to road and bridge projects.
• Requiring that ODOT lease out unused office space in its Salem headquarters, which Republicans say could generate more than $55 million per budget.
• Cutting all ODOT funding by 3%, or around $40 million per budget.
• Redirecting $47 million spent on safe bike and pedestrian facilities, $38 million for passenger train services, $25 million for ODOT’s civil rights division, $14 million for ODOT climate initiatives, and more.

All told, the House GOP says its proposals free up about $732 million in the next two-year budget, theoretically avoiding layoffs ODOT has said will be necessary without at least $354 million in new revenue.

“We have today a proposal which will stabilize the Department of Transportation without a tax increase,” said Drazan. “So my question to my Democrat colleagues is: Why are they so determined to raise taxes when they don’t have to?”

Drazan declined to answer directly when asked repeatedly whether House Republicans would refuse to support any tax increases as part of an eventual road-funding package. No Senate Republicans were present at the press event.

Democrats control a three-fifths supermajority in both the House and Senate, theoretically giving the party the ability to pass new taxes on a party-line vote.

The House Republican proposal will be met with skepticism, to say the least, from many groups that have been lobbying for vastly more road funding this session.

That includes transit agencies and environmental advocates, but also cities and counties, which rely on state funding to pay for road upkeep and have been stressing the dire condition of many of their roads.

“By DOGE-ing the transportation budget and gutting core transit, bike/ped, and climate programs, Oregon Republicans are abandoning the Oregonians they committed to serve,” said Indi Namkoong of the Move Oregon Forward coalition, referring to the federal Department of Government Efficiency.

Jim McCauley, a lobbyist for the League of Oregon Cities, said his group is supportive of the Democrats’ package and suggested pieces of the Republican proposal were unrealistic.

“Local governments aren’t sitting on a gold mine of money,” he said. “They don’t have money to stand up a public transit system. Period.”

The question now becomes what pieces of their own proposal Democrats decide to move forward — and whether the party will take any suggestions from the GOP as a sign of goodwill.

Democrats say they expect to release an initial version of their transportation bill in the coming weeks.