B
Thursday, March 17, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Oregon
job growth
stays steady
SURGING GAS PRICES
Jobless rate inches up as
economic rebound slows
By MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
SALEM — Oregon added another
5,700 jobs in January, but the state’s unem-
ployment rate climbed for the fi rst time in
nearly two years, from 4.2% to 4.3%. That’s
according to data out Tuesday, March 8,
from the Oregon Employment Department.
The state added just over 100,000 jobs
during 2021, among the fastest growth rates
on record, but there are signs that Oregon’s
rapid rebound from the pandemic recession
has begun to slow. State economists have
pushed back their forecast for when Oregon
will be back to pre-COVID employment
levels, from summer into fall.
Hospitality was the fastest-growing
sector in January, adding 2,200 jobs.
COVID-19 shutdowns clobbered restau-
rants, bars and hotels, and the sector still
has 16% fewer workers than it did before
the pandemic.
Oregon schools are another hard-hit
sector that has yet to fully recover. Local
education is down 11,400 jobs, 8.2%, com-
pared to January 2020.
Oregon’s jobless rate is slightly higher
than the national rate, which was 4.0% in
January.
Small variations between the data sets
may not be signifi cant, though, and the
employment department often makes
modest revisions to each prior month’s data.
Oregon unemployment remains near a
historic low and in recent months the state
has had more job openings than unem-
ployed people.
Government economists delay their
monthly reports for a few weeks at the start
of each year to recalibrate data from the
prior year. Oregon will report February’s
jobless rate in two weeks.
Oregon rent aid
deadline extended
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
Oregon households behind on their rent
will have a few more days to apply for
emergency rental assistance because of a
late infusion of $16 million in federal aid.
The new deadline for applications is
11:59 p.m. Monday, March 21. Incomplete
applications, which must be started by
the fi rst deadline, must be completed by
March 28.
The Oregon Housing and Community
Services Department had announced last
week it would close the online portal for
applications on March 14. It had closed
the portal on Dec. 1, then reopened it
on Jan. 26. Since the reopening, almost
25,000 new applications have been fi led
in addition to thousands that have not
been processed.
Under state law, tenants are shielded
from eviction proceedings for nonpay-
ment of rent if they show proof of applica-
tion to their landlords, and as long as the
application is under review. Approvals are
based on need, not on a fi rst-come, fi rst-
served basis.
The $16 million from the U.S. Trea-
sury is in addition to $100 million
approved by the Oregon Legislature at a
Dec. 13 special session, plus $1.1 million
released by the Treasury afterward and
$13 million that the state housing agency
was able to divert from housing stabiliza-
tion programs.
Still, Gov. Kate Brown and Oregon’s
congressional delegation had urged the
Treasury for $198 million in addition to
the state’s original allocation of $289 mil-
lion, which the housing agency and its
partners have now committed or spent
to help more than 40,000 households.
Oregon also has spent $200 million in
state funds approved in December 2020.
“Our message to U.S. Treasury
remains loud and clear: If other states
have money they can’t use, send those
dollars to Oregon,” Jill Smith, interim
director of housing stabilization for the
state agency, said in a statement.
Oregon is among the top states in its
share of emergency rental assistance paid
out, according to the National Low-In-
come Housing Coalition. The Treasury is
in the process of reallocating emergency
rental assistance that other states and
communities failed to spend.
Oregon Department of Transportation/Contributed Photo
State agencies are planning for unexpectedly high fuel prices. Asphalt costs are expected to climb.
State agencies in
Oregon begin to
grapple with hidden
costs of high fuel prices
By ALEX BAUMHARDT
Oregon Capital Chronicle
S
ALEM — Gasoline is both the
hand that gives and the hand that
takes at the Oregon Department
of Transportation. For its funding, the
agency relies on taxes collected from
statewide gas sales. To power road
crews, mowers and snowplows, it has
to buy about 3 million gallons of gas
and diesel a year.
When prices are high, the depart-
ment struggles to aff ord its own fuel,
and Oregon drivers, who pay the gas
tax at the pump, end up driving less
and buying less gas, shrinking the
department’s revenue.
It’s one of the many inconspicuous
ways that rising fuel prices impact
state agencies that still rely on com-
bustion engines and have to travel over
many miles to do their work.
“Costs are going up exponentially
right now with the pandemic supply
chain issues, and asphalt prices will go
up with oil. It’ll force us to make some
tough decisions,” Mac Lynde, an oper-
ations administrator at the transporta-
tion department, said. “It could mean
less pavement overlays, less chip seals
on rural roads, less of the bigger main-
tenance things we do.”
The average price of a gallon of
regular gas for Oregonians hit $4.74
Friday, March 11, according to Oregon
AAA. That’s 70 cents higher than the
week prior and $2 more than a year ago.
The recent spike is due to the Rus-
sian invasion of Ukraine, which has
disrupted the global oil trade and
supply chains and is likely to keep gas
prices high, according to economists.
Oregon’s Department of Adminis-
trative Services negotiates a reduced
bulk fuel rate for state agencies, and
employees fi ll up at specifi c bulk fuel
sites.
For a gallon of regular right now,
bulk fuel users pay about $1 less per
gallon than retail, and for diesel, about
$1.20 less per gallon. Still, prices shot
up by more than a third in the last
month, and the Administrative Ser-
vices Department expects it will be up
50 cents more within the next week.
When state employees aren’t near a
bulk fuel site, they pay the retail price
just like everyone else.
The Transportation Department
expects that at current prices, it could
end up paying $3.5 million more for
fuel in the next year.
Andrea Chiapella, communica-
tions director at the Administra-
tive Services Department, wrote via
email that agencies that receive the
bulk fuels rate are expected to get by
with the budgets they currently have
into 2023. Agencies can reach out to
Administrative Services for emer-
gency fuel budget adjustments, but it
hasn’t yet heard from anyone.
“It may be too early to tell,” Chia-
pella wrote.
Department of Fish and
Wildlife
The state’s Fish and Wildlife
Department relies on trucks, all-ter-
rain vehicles and boats to do its work,
and it too faces inconspicuous costs if
gas prices go up.
Fish and Wildlife collects most of
its money not from the state’s general
fund, but from the sales of hunting
and fi shing licenses.
According to Shannon Hurn,
deputy administrative director at Fish
and Wildlife, when gas prices go up,
fewer of those licenses are sold.
In 2008, when gas prices were at
their last record high — an average of
$4.11 per gallon — the department did
an analysis on the economic impacts.
“The bulk of our funding comes
from participation in wildlife con-
sumptive activities,” Hurn said. “We
found that participation in these activ-
ities is tied to the price of gas, not the
cost of licenses.”
Hurn said the department is looking
at 2008 as a template for how to navi-
gate the budget shortcomings it antici-
pates in the months ahead.
The 2008 surge forced the agency
to restrict statewide travel, stopped
employee trainings and put some hab-
itat restoration projects on hold.
“This could determine whether we
go out into the fi eld as much, it could
delay hirings, the purchase of equip-
ment,” Hurn said.
Fish and Wildlife gets some federal
funding, so more of that could help
balance losses, but even that is tied
to federal excise taxes on the sale of,
among other things, gasoline.
“Rebuilding a fi sh passage struc-
ture, that’s $1 million dollars,” Hurn
said. “We have contractors covering
large distances. The costs of that resto-
ration work will get infl ated.”
She expects long-term research
and habitat restoration projects to get
sidelined in order to save money. The
department can’t aff ord to scale back
its budget for dealing with emergen-
cies, such as handling animal and
wildlife encounters.
See, Prices/Page B6
No suspension of state gas taxes for now
By ALEX BAUMHARDT
Oregon Capital Chronicle
SALEM — Oregon
won’t join other states in
considering a pause to
state gas taxes, for now,
according to Charles
Boyle, deputy communica-
tions offi cer for Gov. Kate
Brown.
Legislators in more
than a dozen states are
proposing temporary gas
tax holidays or rebates to
counter the rising cost of
fuel for individual con-
sumers and businesses. A
measure to suspend the
federal gas tax of 18.4 cents
per gallon is being pro-
posed by Democrats in the
U.S. Senate.
If passed, it would pause
the federal gas tax until
next January.
In an email, Boyle said
that Brown “understands
a large, unexpected spike
in the cost of gas has an
impact on working families
and businesses alike.”
But, Boyle said, sus-
pending state gas taxes
would not come without its
own costs.
State and local gas taxes
help fully fund the Oregon
Department of Transporta-
tion. Temporarily losing the
federal gas tax would have
costs, too. It’s an excise tax
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group, File
A sticker at a Sinclair gas station in Union makes light of the increasing
gas prices on Thursday, March 10, 2022. Gas and diesel prices have
risen to record highs following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
and, in combination with
federal taxes on alcohol,
tobacco and other goods,
helps fund grants and proj-
ects for state agencies,
including the Oregon Fish
and Wildlife Department.
“It is clear that any such
suspensions would have
state revenue impacts that
would need to be addressed
through bipartisan action
from the Legislature in
coordination with our
offi ce and state agencies,”
Boyle wrote.
Oregon’s state fuel tax
is 38 cents per gallon, up
2 cents since a January
increase went into eff ect as
part of the “Keep Oregon
Moving” law. That law,
passed in 2017 to invest
in state transportation
infrastructure, included
increases of about 2 cents
every few years, with
a 10-cent total increase
by 2024.
More than two dozen
Oregon cities, along with
Multnomah and Wash-
ington counties, also have
additional gas taxes on the
sale of each gallon. The
city of Portland collects its
own 10-cent tax, and Mult-
nomah County collects an
additional 3 cents.
Timber Unity, the
timber industry advocacy
group that most famously
sent a vehicle convoy to the
Capitol in 2020 to protest
Brown’s cap-and-trade cli-
mate bill, sent the governor
a letter Monday, March 14,
requesting she use exec-
utive powers to pause the
state’s gas tax.
In the letter, Timber
Unity co-director Angelita
Sanchez pointed to Brown’s
use of emergency powers
to mandate masks.
“Your execution of
those orders demonstrated
the breadth and depth of
gubernatorial control in
circumstances of emer-
gency,” she wrote. “A new
crisis is at our door, and it
demands a response.”
The group asked that
Brown suspend the state
gas tax, halve the per mile
tax on vehicles over 26,000
pounds from an average
of 20 cents per mile to
10 cents per mile, and
allow commercial vehi-
cles to purchase “off -road”
diesel that has a lower tax.
“Off -road” diesel is typ-
ically reserved for vehi-
cles used in construction
and agriculture.
Boyle said that it’s not
clear that suspending state
or federal gas taxes would
have a signifi cant impact
on prices for long because
those prices are being
driven by international
events that are subject
to change.