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Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend) today tried a new tactic in his quest to kill a policy that requires the state to pay travel costs back to Oregon for state employees who have permanently relocated to other states.
Knopp wrote to Gov. Tina Kotek this morning asking her to use her authority over state agencies to end the policy that went into effect Dec. 1, 2021, and now covers more than 500 state employees who have permanently relocated to other states. (The Department of Administrative Services has provided a list of 494 employees, but that list does not include Oregon Lottery, Oregon Department of Justice or Oregon State Treasury employees.)
“The current policy is neither fair nor equitable to hybrid and in-person state employees who don’t get compensated for their commutes,” Knopp wrote. “I ask you to please end this policy today.”
Related: New State Policy Allows Senior Oregon Lottery Managers to Live in Sun Belt States
Knopp’s letter to Kotek comes after legislation he introduced to accomplish the same goal ran into opposition earlier this month.
Knopp’s Senate Bill 853 would prohibit the state from paying travel expenses for state employees who have permanently moved away and need to travel back to Oregon for work. Initially, the bill appeared to have a clear path to passage when all 30 senators and a bipartisan group of House members co-sponsored it.
But on Feb. 9, at the first public hearing on the bill, lawmakers heard from a powerful voice—Melissa Unger, executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 503, which represents 24,000 state workers.
Unger noted that the state developed and implemented the policy covering travel expenses for remote employees, who then made important decisions for their families, with then-Gov. Kate Brown’s approval.
“They [remote employees] would have no reason to believe that policy would change,” Unger testified to the Senate Labor and Business Committee. Unger added that there was little evidence the policy was costing the state significant amounts of money. “We’re not really convinced it’s a problem,” she testified. (DAS has not yet reported on the policy’s costs.)
Unger’s objections resonated: Committee chair Kathleen Taylor (D-Portland) said that despite signing on as a sponsor, she could not support the bill as written. Knopp told Taylor’s committee he would work on amendments to satisfy SEIU’s objections.
Pending negotiations with SEIU on amendments, Knopp today took a different approach, although one that has no guarantee of success. SEIU has supported Kotek strongly throughout her career, including in last year’s governor’s race, and the governor’s chief of staff, Andrea Cooper, is a former SEIU 503 political director. (Knopp’s letter comes a day after Knopp expressed his frustration with the travel policy on the Lars Larson show on KXL radio. Knopp told Larson he had informally sought Kotek’s support to end the policy. Larson exhorted him to go public with that request and on Friday, Knopp did.)
Kotek’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.