SALEM, Ore. — Whether you live in Oregon or outside of the state, and voted for Governor Tina Kotek or against her, the success of a state's governor is something in which everyone should be invested. Working with a state legislature, governors can wield an enormous amount of clout, particularly when it comes to getting things funded.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek took to the podium in Salem on Wednesday, delivering a speech to mark her first 100 days in office. While highlighting some early legislative victories aimed at delivering on her campaign promises — namely by addressing homelessness, affordable housing and education — she cajoled the legislature to do more.
“Our 100-day sprint has laid the foundation to improve the lives of all Oregonians,” Gov. Kotek said. “We have an abundance of people in our state who are willing to try things they have never done before to solve our greatest challenges, all because they believe in Oregon’s potential.”
The 'homelessness-jail-hospital pipeline'
First and foremost, Kotek pointed to the Oregon Legislature's passage of a $200 million package to fund projects covered by her homelessness state of emergency, which she called a “down payment on an investment that Oregonians are owed.”
With that package, Kotek aims to keep nearly 9,000 people from becoming homeless, move at least 1,200 people into permanent housing, and add at least 600 more shelter beds.
While it's unclear how exactly the state will track the progress toward those goals, Kotek has already taken an active role in holding counties accountable on their plans to use the funding effectively. She initially panned Multnomah County's submission for its lack of clarity, telling them to go back to the drawing board. As of Monday, the governor's office had approved Multnomah County's updated plan for that $18.2 million investment.
Clackamas County received an even bigger snub after commissioners blew up a plan to purchase a hotel for conversion into transitional housing. Kotek essentially said that the county didn't need any state funding for shelter capacity when it was already throwing money out the window.
Where Kotek may depart from more fiscally conservative members of the legislature, even among her own Democratic party, is in her request that lawmakers spend a further $300 million in general funds and use bonds to pull in another $1 billion for affordable housing and homelessness initiatives.
Without bonding and snatching money that would normally be put into Oregon's rainy day fund, the legislature can't possibly pay for everything Kotek wants to accomplish. Nonetheless, she's pushing them to wring out every red cent they can in order to fund these priorities.
Kotek also hit on Oregon's overwhelmed behavioral health system, identifying a harmful and expensive "homelessness-jail-hospital pipeline" and preventable deaths from substance use or mental illness, exacerbated by an inadequate behavioral health workforce.
"The overlay between behavioral health and housing stability is as clear as day," she said. "This is not a conversation about one or the other. It's a conversation about yes AND. Oregonians need a stronger, more accessible behavioral health system that meets them where they are and matches them with the appropriate level of care that they need."
Reading and listening
While the bill has yet to pass through the Oregon Legislature, Kotek also pointed to House Bill 3198, the "Early Literacy Success Initiative." The bill has bipartisan support and aims to fund schools, community-based organizations and Oregon Tribes in order to improve students' reading and writing skills.
Oregon does not require any one style for teaching children to read. Some schools use what's called a "whole language" approach, where children learn to recognize entire words based on context.
But the state is encouraging schools to use a different approach, called the "science of reading," which means learning the sounds of letters, then sounding out words based on those letters — they way many now-adults learned to read.
The current landscape does not appear to be working very well in Oregon. A report released last summer showed that just 40% of third graders met reading standards statewide. The number was even worse for students of color — just 21%.
HB 3198 is an attempt to fix that. Under the bill, Oregon will award grants to the aforementioned organizations to help coach teachers, conduct summer school, tutor kids and adopt a science of reading curriculum.
Kotek called Oregon's early literacy rates "intolerable," insisting that the minimum acceptable investment in the issue is $120 million. That will be up to the legislature's Ways and Means committee.
"Change is coming. If passed and adequately funded, the bill will be a first step toward a long-term approach to improve how we support our students' development inside and outside the classroom," Kotek said. "We must set the course for Oregon's future by making meaningful investments in each of these priority areas. A status quo budget — or worse, a cuts budget — is completely unacceptable for the next two years ahead of us."
Before she'd even begun her term in office, Kotek announced that she would launch a listening tour, visiting each county in Oregon within this first year. Thus far she's visited six counties, all on the western side of the state: Yamhill, Douglas, Columbia, Benton, Lincoln, and Polk.
“I’ve met with families in Yoncalla, educators in Vernonia and students in Philomath who are determined to build success in their communities,” she said. “I’ve heard from behavioral health providers in Newport and housing providers in Dallas who are dedicated to helping their most vulnerable neighbors in their time of greatest need. I take these stories home with me to Salem, to enrich and refine our shared vision for the Oregon we know is possible.”
During The Story's own listening tour in eastern Oregon, a number of people interviewed expressed their desire to see Gov. Kotek come and engage with their thoughts and complaints about the state. Not all of them felt that it would change their opinions on whether they'd like to remain Oregonians, however.
After Kotek delivered her speech, a reporter from the Oregon Capital Chronicle helpfully told the governor about a new poll released Wednesday by a group called "Morning Consult" that had her ranked as the least popular governor in America. Here's her response:
"Well, thank you, I have not seen the coverage — but if it's anything like the previous poll that came out from DHM, I think there are a lot of Oregonians who don't know me. Right? We came off the election, people went back to their day jobs, you know, their lives, they're not paying attention too much. That's why the One Oregon Tour is very important. My goal is to help Oregonians get to know who I am and right back at them, hear what they need from me. So, it's going to take some time but we've only been at this a hundred days. As we continue to communicate with Oregonians in a variety of ways, they'll get to know me better and I hope they'll like what I'm doing."