Published: June 12, 2023

The 2023 legislative session is drawing toward an uncertain close. For weeks, Senate Republicans have stayed off the chamber floor, preventing votes on bills. But over the weekend, reports emerged that a return is possible.

The Oregon Constitution requires that the Legislature conclude business, or sine die, no later than June 25. Last week, it started closing up shop.

All policy committees completed their work weeks ago. Revenue and rules committees in each chamber and the Joint Ways and Means Committee, however, continued to hear bills. Ways and Means, which is much larger than other committees and has 23 legislators, uses a topical subcommittee structure to complete the full breadth of appropriations work each session. Last week, all but the capital construction subcommittee finalized their work and finished meeting for the session. Capital construction is always the last subcommittee to shut down and includes the remaining budget bills necessary to balance the budget.

Before shutting down, the education subcommittee took action on two notable bills: Senate Bill 283 and House Bill 3198.

SB 283 is the session’s major education workforce initiative. Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, championed the bill. After months of meetings and testimony, the subcommittee adopted the -A11 amendments, which effectively replaced the existing bill. The amended bill is large, containing 33 operative sections across 28 pages. Committee working documents describe the vast scope of what the bill would do, and some notable policy points include:

  • Giving districts the ability to increase pay for special education staff by a differential of up to 20%;
  • Establishing the Safe School Culture Grant program to help schools develop networks of instructors certified in nonviolent crisis intervention;
  • Funding grants to promote registered apprenticeships for educators and to promote the beginning teacher and administrator mentorship program, to be administered by the Educator Advancement Council;
  • Allowing education service district boards to terminate a superintendent’s employment without cause at any time during the contract period if the boards provide the superintendent 12 months’ notice;
  • Establishing the Task Force on Substitute Teachers, in response to a chronic shortage that schools face;
  • Requiring that classified school employees may be dismissed, demoted or disciplined only for just cause;
  • Tasking the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission with creating a statewide jobs portal for school employment.

OSBA supported some of the provisions. But the association opposed others, notably the provision requiring “just cause” discipline for classified employees.

HB 3198 is Gov. Tina Kotek’s early literacy investment initiative. In a surprise move, the committee adopted bill amendments that would raid the Student Investment Account to pay for it. A collection of K-12 stakeholders, including OSBA, the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, the Oregon Education Association and the Oregon School Employees Association, testified against this change. Kotek’s own Oregon Department of Education director expressed concerns.

In the final subcommittee meeting last week, both bills were endorsed and returned to the full committee on Ways and Means for consideration.

The final budget bills and remaining policy bills requiring appropriations are expected to be finalized early this week. After that, committees are expected to conclude and the final House floor sessions will follow, likely ending later this week.

This timeline has been based on the pervasive assumption that the Senate Republican walkout will persist.

Few necessary budgets have been passed, and rumors have already begun about the details of a special legislative session if needed.  Speculation is that legislators would try to arrange the special session to pass the budgets before the fiscal year starts July 1.

– Richard Donovan
Legislative Services specialist