Question:
Answer:
I’m writing this while at the Capitol for the September Interim Legislative Days. This week I’m not testifying, but I will be listening: to agencies, advocacy groups, legislators, and their staff about what’s actually being drafted for 2027. So when asked to get specific about my top three priorities, the timing felt right because “specific” is exactly what I owe you.
As I have said previously, 2027 won’t be a session for promising new programs, and I still believe that. Oregon is heading into it with a real structural budget problem. Federal changes to Medicaid and food assistance are shifting substantial costs and administrative responsibilities to the state. At the same time, revenue from the Corporate Activity Tax, which supports early learning and several major K-12 investments, has come in below earlier projections. Some agencies are already leaving positions unfilled or reducing services to make ends meet. That’s the room I’d be walking into.
Instead of a long list of things I’d like, here are three I’d fight for first, and why. I picked these because HD3 families and organizations specifically raised them with me, because each has a realistic path using existing state resources and outside funding, and because all three build on something that already exists.
None of these proposals begins with creating a new tax or raising an existing tax rate. In a tight budget, funding a priority means making choices, measuring results, using available federal and state dollars well, and being willing to spend less on things that deliver a weaker return.
That matters to me. I’ve been reading Annie Lowrey’s new book, The Time Tax, about how much of what’s broken in government isn’t simply a lack of money. It is also wasted time: duplicated paperwork, agencies that don’t talk to each other, and good programs that people can’t actually access. That idea runs through all three answers below, especially the “how do we pay for it” parts.
1. Create two paths to safe, warm, and dry rural schools
What I’d propose: Oregon needs two ways to help communities repair aging school buildings.
The first is to strengthen the existing Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching Program so it works better for high-need districts with limited local bonding capacity. Right now, the program considers factors such as assessed property value, poverty, and enrollment, but part of the available funding is still awarded based on the order in which completed applications arrive. Districts must also pass a local bond before receiving the state match. In communities with lower assessed property values, raising the same amount can require a much higher local tax rate.
I’d push to increase the share of funding awarded through the needs-based priority list, review whether the formula adequately measures local capacity and building condition, and expand technical assistance for small districts.
The second pathway is for districts that cannot pass a local bond but still have children learning in buildings with leaking roofs, failing heating systems, unsafe electrical equipment, or other urgent health and safety problems. In 2025, House Bill 3014 proposed creating a School District Facility Equity Fund. As proposed, up to half of the funding could have been awarded without requiring a local match, with grants of up to $2.5 million for facility replacement, repair, maintenance, and health and safety upgrades. The bill did not advance out of Joint Ways and Means before the session ended.
I would work to revive and refine that proposal in 2027. A child’s safety should not depend entirely on whether the property values and household incomes in that child’s community are high enough to pass a major local bond. OSCIM should remain available for communities that can approve local bonds, while a facility equity fund provides a second pathway for urgent needs in communities that cannot.
What it would cost: The existing OSCIM grants provide up to $6 million for most districts and up to $12 million in some cases. My first ask within that program would be to change how existing funds are prioritized and make sure the state’s technical assistance reaches the districts that need it most.
The original HB 3014 proposed $100 million in state lottery bonds for the School District Facility Equity Fund. I would use that proposal as a starting point, but I would not commit to the full amount until the state has reviewed the December revenue forecast, available lottery-bond capacity, statewide facility data, and the most urgent documented health and safety needs.
The program should begin with a defined funding level, objective eligibility standards, and priority for repairs that keep buildings open and protect students and staff. Those standards should consider facility condition, local property values, poverty, prior bond attempts, available district reserves, and whether a district has previously received state construction assistance.
How I’d pay for it: The existing OSCIM pathway is financed through Article XI-P state bonds. The facility equity proposal would use state lottery bonds, as HB 3014 proposed. Neither pathway requires a new state tax or an increase in an existing tax rate.
Lottery bonds still create a real obligation because future lottery revenue must be used for debt service. That means this proposal must compete openly with other capital investments and demonstrate a stronger public return. I would first look at available capacity within the state’s existing capital plan and prioritize essential repairs over lower-urgency projects.
I am not proposing that the state require any community to pass a local property-tax bond. Local bonds would remain decisions made by local voters. The facility equity pathway is specifically intended to help address urgent health and safety needs when a local bond is not financially or politically achievable.
Why the investment pays off: Repairing a roof before water damages classrooms, wiring, insulation, and structural components costs less than rebuilding after those systems fail. Replacing a failing boiler before it closes a school is less expensive than emergency repairs, temporary classrooms, student transportation, and lost instructional time. Timely repairs protect buildings taxpayers have already paid for and can reduce energy, insurance, and maintenance costs.
School construction and repair also support Oregon contractors, tradespeople, suppliers, and local jobs. The return should be measured through the number of urgent hazards corrected, students served, school closures avoided, local dollars leveraged, operating costs reduced, and years of useful building life preserved.
The goal is straightforward: children should be safe, warm, and dry at school, whether or not their community can afford to pass a multimillion-dollar bond.
Who I’d need to persuade: The House and Senate education committees, the Joint Ways and Means education budget process, and the Joint Ways and Means Capital Construction Subcommittee, which considers state bond investments. I’d also work with rural and small-district legislators from both parties, the Oregon Department of Education, school boards, facilities professionals, and communities that have firsthand experience with failed bonds and deferred maintenance.
2. Build a real wildfire and forestry jobs pipeline at Rogue Community College
What I’d propose: Build a year-round wildfire and forestry workforce pathway at RCC in partnership with OSU Extension, local employers, and existing training providers. Young people coming out of HD3 high schools could complete foundational wildland-fire courses such as S-130 and S-190, first aid, employer-required safety and field preparation, and appropriate saw training. Paid work-based learning could then help them build the experience needed to compete for local jobs in wildfire response, fuels reduction, prescribed fire, and forest restoration.
What it would cost: RCC already offers wildland-fire continuing education, generally during winter and spring, and OSU Extension already has wildfire and forest-resilience expertise working in Josephine County. That gives us a real foundation. The next step is for RCC, Rogue Workforce Partnership, employers, and training partners to develop a specific pilot budget. Likely costs include coordination, instructors, equipment, protective gear, participant support, and employer incentives.
How I’d pay for it: The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act can help eligible participants pay for training, transportation, supportive services, and employer-based training opportunities. Those dollars are limited and cannot be assumed to cover the full program, but they can be combined with existing workforce, community-college, wildfire-resilience, and fuels-reduction funding.
Lomakatsi, Northwest Youth Corps, RCC, OSU Extension, local fire agencies, and regional prescribed-fire and forest-restoration partners are already doing pieces of this work in southern Oregon. I would begin with a limited pilot that connects those existing investments, fills specific gaps, and proves results before asking the state to make a larger commitment. I am not proposing a new tax to fund it.
Why the investment pays off: This investment addresses two local economic needs at once. It creates a pathway into paid work for young people while helping employers find trained workers for wildfire response, fuels reduction, and forest restoration. Training local residents also gives more of the public and private dollars already being spent on wildfire work a chance to remain in southern Oregon through local wages, purchases, and contracting.
There is also a prevention return. Strategic fuels reduction and forest-restoration work can help protect homes, businesses, infrastructure, watersheds, and the tourism economy from catastrophic wildfire. The pilot should measure completion rates, credentials earned, job placement, wage progression, employer participation, local work completed, and the amount of federal or employer funding leveraged for every state dollar invested.
Who I’d need to persuade: RCC, OSU Extension, Rogue Workforce Partnership, the Higher Education Coordinating Commission, local employers, and the legislative committees responsible for higher education, workforce development, wildfire, and natural resources. Oregon Department of Forestry would also be an important partner and a potential employer, although completing the pathway would not guarantee anyone a position.
3. Protect child care before it gets cut again
What I’d propose: Hold the line against further reductions to Employment Related Day Care and Preschool Promise. I would also push for coordinated eligibility and enrollment across ERDC, Preschool Promise, and other means-tested family supports, including reuse of income documents when state and federal law allow it. Families should not have to repeatedly submit the same information to different parts of government when those programs could safely coordinate.
What it would cost: This is defense, not expansion, and I want to be honest about that. Preschool Promise received roughly $20 million less than its projected 2025-27 current service level as lawmakers adjusted the early learning budget following weaker Corporate Activity Tax projections. ERDC is also facing growing costs and significant pressure. Federal changes to Medicaid and food assistance are not direct cuts to these child care programs, but they place additional demands on the same state budget that supports them.
Simply protecting current service levels is going to be a real fight on its own.
How I’d pay for it: Protecting these programs will require an actual budget appropriation. In a constrained budget, that means treating child care as a priority within existing General Fund, Corporate Activity Tax, and federal resources. It also means looking for underused funds, duplicative administrative spending, and lower-priority expenditures that can be reduced or delayed.
Administrative simplification can reduce the burden on families and providers and may lower some operating costs, but I will not pretend those savings alone can replace program funding. I am also not proposing a new tax to fill the gap. Protecting child care means making a clear budget choice and being honest about what receives less priority as a result.
We also have to account honestly for how tax relief for small businesses, including efforts to raise the Corporate Activity Tax exemption threshold, would affect the Fund for Student Success. CAT dollars support preschool and other education investments. Any exemption change should have a public revenue estimate, be designed as narrowly as possible to reach genuinely small businesses, and include corresponding spending choices or a phased implementation so children and schools are not left paying for it. Relief for small businesses and stability for child care and education have to be solved together.
Why the investment pays off: Child care is workforce infrastructure. When parents cannot find dependable care, they miss work, reduce their hours, turn down jobs, or leave the workforce. That affects family income and makes it harder for local employers to recruit and retain workers. Child care providers are also small businesses that employ local residents and spend money in their communities.
Preschool investments can improve school readiness and reduce the need for more expensive interventions later. Protecting ERDC and Preschool Promise supports working parents now while helping children enter school ready to succeed. I would expect the state to report whether the investment improves access, keeps providers operating, reduces enrollment delays, supports parental employment, and lowers the administrative cost per family served.
Who I’d need to persuade: The Joint Ways and Means education budget process, the House and Senate committees responsible for early learning, leadership at the Department of Early Learning and Care, and the legislators carrying Corporate Activity Tax threshold bills. I need to be in that room while the trade-offs are being decided, not reacting to a deal after it has already been made.
What’s still on the list, and why it’s not final
I want to be straight with you about what this list leaves out, because it is not because these things don’t matter. Elder care, mental health and recovery services, homeowners insurance relief, headwaters and water quality protection, court care, support for young people aging out of foster care, death doula licensing, a Children’s Health Cabinet, and help for mom-and-pop landlords who are getting squeezed out by out-of-state investment firms all came from real conversations with real people in HD3. I’m still working on every one of them with the community and with colleagues in Salem.
But you asked for my highest priorities, not everything, and I think you deserve honesty about that difference. The truth is nobody can responsibly rank a full 2027 agenda in September. We don’t have the December economic forecast yet. We don’t know what additional changes may come out of Washington, D.C., between now and January.
At the same time, the legislative drafting process is already moving. Legislators and committees must submit requests for presession bill drafts by September 11. Legislative Counsel is scheduled to return those drafts by December 1, and they must be submitted for introduction by December 11. That means ideas are becoming more concrete right now, even though many of the details and budget decisions will continue changing through January and throughout the session.
What I’ve shared here is my best answer today, built on the clearest information and community input I have right now. I expect it to keep changing as the budget, legislation, and opportunities come into focus.
If I’ve got the order wrong, or missed something that matters more to your family than what’s on this list, tell me. This whole campaign runs on the idea that the community holds the wisdom, not me. I’m just trying to carry it into the room.