Sen. Kate Lieber, D-Beaverton, right, speaks with Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, on the Senate floor at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023. (Amanda Loman/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

Citing higher-than-anticipated caseloads in the state’s Medicaid program and the agency that provides services to seniors and people with disabilities, Oregon’s budget writers plan to spend nearly $426 million more than they initially budgeted before the end of the fiscal year in June. 

The new spending is detailed in a set of amendments to five bills — Senate Bills 5550, 5049, 5050, 5051 and 10 — released Wednesday afternoon. They’re part of a routine “budget rebalance,” which the Legislature does before the end of each two-year budget.  

The state budgets in two-year cycles, passing a spending plan during the five-month-long legislative session each odd-numbered year and adjusting it as needed during its 35-day sessions in even-numbered years, during special legislative sessions called by the governor or by votes of the emergency board, a group of lawmakers who can approve spending requests when the Legislature isn’t in session. 

In this case, most of the new spending is going toward the Oregon Health Authority and the Department of Human Services. The health authority, which administers the Oregon Health Plan or Oregon’s Medicaid program, will receive nearly $198 million to respond to growing caseloads. 

“We’ve planned for a certain amount of money to go out in Medicaid, and if the caseload increases or utilization increases, they’re telling us we need X amount more dollars to get to July 1,” Sen. Kate Lieber, D-Beaverton and a co-chair of the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee, told reporters in a Tuesday briefing.  

Lawmakers attributed the more than $161 million for the human services department to increased demand for programs from its Aging and People with Disabilities Office, in part due to more people going into long-term care after the pandemic. 

DHS will also receive $10 million to help keep foster children from being kept in temporary lodging like hotel rooms. Lawmakers appropriated that money already, but it hadn’t been spent when they needed to use all available funds to pay wildfire bills during a December special session. 

Rep. Tawna Sanchez, D-Portland and the other committee co-chair, said lawmakers are just restoring the money they already allocated. 

“We want to make sure that we’re doing all we can to prevent kids from going into hotel lodging,” Sanchez said. 

The new spending also includes $6 million for wildfire prevention this spring, $4 million for court interpreters and $50,000 for a management review of the Oregon Department of Transportation that will be completed before lawmakers end the 2025 session. One of their major goals this year is to come up with a permanent funding plan for the transportation department as the gas tax covers less and less of its needs, but lawmakers say they need to hold the department accountable for spending that money efficiently. 

Lieber and Sanchez don’t yet know when they’ll release a framework for the 2025-27 budget, which is in flux because of uncertainty related to federal funds and the impact of federal decisions like imposing tariffs. That budget will rely on the next quarterly economic and revenue forecast, expected in late April.

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