OFF PAGE ONE
Thursday, March 3, 2022
Overtime:
ment, Holvey said. “Sending the bill
back to committee would not end up
with a different outcome.”
Under the version of HB 4002
the House passed, the weekly
threshold for farmworker overtime
would begin at 55 hours next year
and incrementally drop to 40 hours
in 2027.
Most farms will be divided into
three tax credit tiers based on their
number of employees:
• Growers employing fewer than
25 workers would qualify for tax
credits of 90% of their added over-
time payments next year, which
would decrease to 60% in 2028,
after which they’d expire.
• During that time, the tax credit
rate would shift from 75% to 50%
for growers with 25 to 50 employ-
ees, and from 60% to 15% for farm-
ers with more than 50 workers.
• Dairies would be treated differ-
ently due to their round-the-clock
need for animal care. Those with
fewer than 25 workers would be
eligible for a permanent tax credit
rate of 100% of overtime payments,
while those with more employees
would qualify for a rate that incre-
mentally shifts from 75% in 2023 to
50% in 2028, its final year.
Rep. Andrea Valderrama,
D-Portland, said lawmakers heard
from thousands of farmers and
workers while deliberating the bill,
but said she was most moved by the
testimony of employees.
Farmworkers testified about
enduring chemicals, dust and inju-
into the essential fire service. In
Umatilla County, it’s not as clear
cut, according to Umatilla Fire
District 1 Chief Scott Stanton.
That leads to issues when some
fire threatens homes and firefight-
ers scramble to fight a fire, leav-
ing little time to discern whether
or not that fire is from a home that
is covered.
“Imagine going to a fire scene,”
Stanton said, “whether it’s here or
Douglas County or wherever, and
you go up to a subdivision and you
know that there’s two homes maybe
in there that have chosen not to pay
the fire district. You may not know
in an emergency situation which
one is paying and which one isn’t,
so you’re just going to do your work
and then all of the sudden they find
out they’re not paying.”
Stanton also said the discrep-
ancy between who does and doesn’t
pay for fire services can create
inequities.
“Under current Oregon laws and
statutes a property can choose not to
be in a rural fire protection district,
but they can’t choose to not pay
city or county taxes and they can’t
choose not to pay school, education
district taxes,” he said. “Yet, they
can choose not to be in a fire district
for that really vital, essential public
safety service. They can choose not
to pay.”
The option to not be in a fire
district remains, but for rural home-
owners that choose not to pay for
fire services, hefty bills can accu-
mulate in the event fire departments
respond to a fire on a landowner’s
property.
Enterprise Fire Department
runs on a subscription-type service,
according to Chief Paul Karvoski.
That means property owners can
elect to buy in to the fire protection
services even if they’re not in the
district. Karvoski said the new law
could simplify things if it passes.
“We do subscription contracts
outside the city limits, so it would
benefit us if we could just draw a
circle and have a taxing area, like a
district,” he said. “It would make it
much simpler to respond and every-
thing. It’d probably end up being
cheaper for the public that’s out
there in the rural part of the county
that surrounds the city. Under these
subscription deals we got, they pay
$145, and it says we’re gonna show
up and then they get billed by the
hour, per truck, and it gets very
expensive for them. So introducing
this in the legislation like this bill is
gonna save more money.”
How much money? According to
Karvoski, fire responses to structure
fires can accrue rapidly due to bill-
Continued from Page A1
wages after a weekly threshold of
48 hours during most of the year
and after 55 hours during a 15-week
“peak labor period.”
“It is more generous to farm-
workers than any other policy,” said
Rep. Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles.
“They won’t have their hours cut
nearly as much and will still earn
overtime wages after 40 hours.”
Holvey said he opposed the
amendment because the state over-
time payments wouldn’t include
contributions to social security
insurance, unemployment insur-
ance or worker’s compensation
insurance.
Farmworkers also would have
to wait up to two months to receive
the relief payments from the state
government, he said.
The Joint Committee on Farm
Worker Overtime thoroughly
discussed and rejected the amend-
Fire:
Continued from Page A1
According to Kretschmer, more
than 40,000 acres in Union County
is not covered by the fire district.
“We’ve been looking at ways
to let people know, because not
everybody in the valley knows
they don’t have fire protection,” he
said. “This would be just another
tool that could be used. Now, you
never want to force anybody to do
anything, right, so our goal is to let
people know that hey, your house
is not protected so there’s a good
chance that you won’t have a fire
department response.”
Kretschmer said dispatch in
Union County can see whether
or not a house is covered by the
district, and whether they pay
East Oregonian
East Oregonian, File
River Point Farms workers plant onion seeds March 17, 2015, in a field
near County Line Road west of Hermiston. The Oregon House on Tuesday,
March 1, 2022, voted 37-23 to end the state’s agricultural exemption from
higher overtime wages.
ries while not having enough money
to cover their rent, education and
healthcare needs, she said. “Why is
it the people who do the most sacred
work are the most oppressed, the
most exploited?”
Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake
Oswego, said the agricultural
exemption was created more than
80 years ago at the national level to
appease Southern lawmakers who
wanted to maintain segregated
conditions for Black farmworkers.
“It was not about economics
back then, it was about race,” she
said.
Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth,
said HB 4002 was not the bill he’d
hoped for but it will be possible for
lawmakers to tweak it as it’s imple-
mented in future years.
“This bill is just the beginning of
the conversation,” Evans said.
As lawmakers, it’s their obli-
gation to recognize the equality
of human labor and not to toler-
ate injustice, he said. “We are
supposed to confront it, not sweep
it under the rug.”
able working hours spent fighting
the fire and cleanup work.
“You get these house fires that
we’re out there for six, seven hours
— you’re pushing a $5,000 bill
pretty quickly,” he said.
The changes in how districts are
laid out would bring rural areas more
in line with municipalities, making
fire services mandatory in the same
way that taxes that support schools
and county services are rolled into
property taxes. Jerry Hampton,
fire chief of Haines Fire Protection
District, said it’s a matter of fairness.
“It is not fair for the taxpay-
ers in the district to have to pay
for the people that are not within
the district boundaries that some-
times may need or require some
type of fire suppression,” he said.
“I have mixed emotions both ways.
In all due respect, it’s probably the
right thing.”
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