PM and uh welcome to the April 21st City Council work session.

Thanks to all of you for being here.

Uh tonight we're gonna get a legislative update from our government affairs person, uh director uh Ariel Nelson.

But before then, I just want to let you know that uh Councilor Allcare will be attending online, and then Councillor Anne Vary will be coming a little late.

So just so you all know that.

Uh Robbie, do you have anything else?

Uh no, that's it.

Thanks, Mayor.

Ariel, take it away.

All right, thanks everyone.

Um, Ariel Nelson here, your government relations manager with a post-legislative session update.

I'll give just a second for the slides to load.

Um these slides will look very familiar.

It's essentially the same framework that I presented last time I was before you in a work session, which is mid-February for a mid-session update.

Um, and so now we have the after action report.

And um, so we'll this is and this is largely focused around the city's uh legislative priorities with a little bit more context than some of the major themes from session.

So similar structure again to what you've seen before.

Uh happy to take questions throughout.

So just a reminder that this was a short legislative session, which we have every even numbered years, very past fast pace for legislation.

Um, so one addition on this slide, uh, the actual uh date of adjournment of signing die for the legislature.

Their constitutional deadline was March 8th, and the legislature adjourned on Friday, March 6th at 418 p.m.

Um, so these are the major themes we've talked about before in session.

Um, as you know, coming into the session, lawmakers faced a dual budget challenge.

So they had um a roughly 750 million dollar shortfall in the general fund driven primarily by the passage of the federal HR one bill, and which had a major impact to Oregon revenues.

Um, and then a separate approximately $300 million gap at the Oregon Department of Transportation that was left unresolved after Republicans referred the 2025 transportation package, namely the the fees in the package to the ballots.

So legislative leadership in this case, the partying power democrats closed this gap.

Um they were succeeded in doing that primarily by disconnecting portions of Oregon's tax code from select federal position uh federal provisions.

So as a reminder, Oregon's tax code automatically connects to the federal tax code, and when the HR1 passed, um there were some major shortfalls because Oregon's code mirrored the federal.

So uh they passed Senate Bill 1507, um, which disconnected strategically from pieces of the federal tax code and generated about 311 million for the general fund.

Um, shortly after that bill passed, Republicans announced their intention to refer the measure to voters.

They also saw um saw an improved revenue forecast in session.

Um, so that helped the shortage, the shortfall.

And then they were also able to make some modest spending trims through agency budgets, largely through keeping vacated positions open, reducing agency supply budgets, and so they were able to cover the remainder of the budget shortfall.

Any questions on that?

Um, so there were two key transportation funding bills this session.

Next major theme.

Um, as you know, uh the transportation package that passed um in the 2025 special session was referred.

Uh, major components of that, the revenue raising measures were referred to the ballot.

Um, and so the legislature introduced Senate Bill 1599, which moved the election date for the ballot measure referral from the November general election to the May primary.

Um, shortly after this was Senate Bill 1599.

Shortly after that passed, um, Republican representative and gubernatorial candidate uh Ed Deal announced his intention to seek a judicial order blocking the bill from taking effect on constitutional grounds.

Um, this was probably the most politically charged uh bill in debate this session.

Um, and then uh I think it was March 11th, a few weeks ago, a Marion County judge declined to block the May election.

So it is gonna go forward on that ballot.

The other major transportation bill was Senate Bill 1601, which addressed um some additional transportation funding shortfall through ODOT vacancy savings.

It also um closed the gap by redirecting federal funds.

Um they redrifted federal funds, sorry, and then the rest was backfilled by reallocating funds from some statewide programs, some of which come to local communities, um, things like pedestrian safety programs, seismic retrofits, rail projects, and vehicle electric electrification funds to shore up the state road maintenance and preservation.

This provides a path forward for ODOT until we expect the legislature to take up a new funding package in the next 2027 legislative session.

Of course, this does not address local city and county funding needs not met by the current state highway fund revenues.

And lawmakers and transportation officials acknowledge the fix is not sustainable.

The bill that passed, we need long-term revenue solutions.

So we expect that conversation to continue.

Last month, also Governor KOTEC announced she would convene a transportation work group to develop a framework for a comprehensive package in 2027.

So we'll be watching that.

This session, the other major themes, of course, saw significant legislative action on both economic development and ICE response, which I will cover in the next slides.

We'll get into more detail.

And all told the we saw this session 304 bills introduced.

Part of major reason for that is there are bill limit limitations in the short session.

Of those, 153 bills or measures passed the legislature.

However, um it's actually 152 that made it into law because notably the governor just vetoed House Bill 4177, which made updates and clarifications to ethics serial meetings laws.