An hour with Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek

A lot has changed statewide since Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek last appeared on “Think Out Loud” in October 2023. Since then, the state’s 3-year experiment with drug decriminalization has ended, a state of emergency was declared to address the fentanyl overdose crisis in Multnomah County, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a homelessness case out of Grants Pass and the governor faced backlash for the prominent role her wife has played in her administration.

We spent an hour in Salem recently to get an update from the governor on all of those developments and more.

Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We’re spending the hour today with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek from her office in Salem. We were last here in October of 2023. That was before the Portland Public Schools teachers’ strike brought renewed attention to school funding statewide, before Oregon lawmakers recriminalized the possession of drugs, before a state of emergency was declared to address the overdose crisis in Multnomah County, before the governor backtracked on a plan to create an office of the first spouse and before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a homelessness case out of Grants Pass.

There’s a lot to get to and we can jump right in. Governor Kotek, thanks a lot once again for giving us a full hour of your time. I really do appreciate it.

Gov. Tina Kotek: You’re welcome, Dave. I feel like we should do it more often. That’s a lot since October.

Miller: Let’s do it more often. Let’s do it twice a year.

Kotek: There you go.

Miller: I want to start with national politics first. There’s a lot to dig into in Oregon, but it’s been as dramatic a week in Democratic party politics as I can remember in my lifetime – the whirlwind of the devastating debate performance for President Joe Biden and then the push for him to drop out, to step down. He didn’t, then he finally did.

And now Kamala Harris, in a really surprisingly quick way, has reenergized the party. And then this week, her pick for one of your fellow Democratic governors, Tim Walz, to be her running mate. What have the last few weeks been like for you as a Democratic leader?

Kotek: I think anybody in Democratic leadership has watched and been surprised, upset, sad, shocked. There have been a lot of emotions the last three to four weeks. But where we are today, it’s excitement, it’s enthusiasm. I had a chance to watch the kickoff rally last night on YouTube.

Miller: In your old home state?

Kotek: Old home state – Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. And what I’m excited about is we’re back to talking about issues and you saw that in that kickoff rally, talking about values, talking about issues, why Democrats are focused on certain issues, because that’s what voters want to talk about. They want to get past the drama, they just want to talk about what’s going to make their lives better.

Miller: What’s been the biggest surprise for you politically in the last four weeks?

Kotek: I have been pleasantly surprised by a couple of things. One, the courage of President Biden to say that, “I was always meant to transition. We have to win in November.” I don’t know anything about his decision. I was not involved in any of those conversations at that level, but he did the right thing. That is a tremendous thing for someone in elected office at his level to do.

And it’s amazing that we have such a qualified vice president in Kamala Harris who can step in and has galvanized people. She’s a unifier. People are excited. Her selection of Governor Tim Walz from Minnesota is tremendous. I know Tim, I know his wife Gwen – just really down-to-earth people who I think are going to connect with voters across the country. So I think Democrats are in a very good position to win in November.

Miller: All right, let’s switch to Oregon politics, Oregon policies. How are you thinking about homelessness policy in Oregon in the wake of the Grants Pass v. Johnson Supreme Court decision?

Kotek: Well, I don’t think it will come as any surprise to anyone that I’m focused on doing the work of making sure people get the services they need. Just to bring everybody back, when I first came into office, I said we have a state of emergency when it comes to unsheltered homelessness.

Miller: That was day one.

Kotek: Day one. I re-upped that emergency the beginning of my second year. We’re not done there. We have too many people living outside. I do think we’re making progress. I think we have focused on keeping people housed, rehousing people, setting up more predictable shelter across the state. And I think we’re seeing progress, but that’s what I’m focused on. The Grants Pass case is very specific, but every day Oregonians are sleeping outside and that’s what I’m focused on.

Miller: Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has said he wants the legislature to define more explicitly what is “objectively reasonable,” which is part of the time and place restrictions ordinance – or I should say state law. Cities can put in place restrictions on public camping in terms of time and place, but it has to be objectively reasonable. And he says he’d like lawmakers to define that more explicitly. Do you agree?

Kotek: Well, he’s told me that directly. I still meet with him on a regular basis, him and the chair of Multnomah County. We talk about these things. Cities across the state have implemented their time, place and manner ordinances in reaction to the law and they’re figuring it out. If legislators don’t believe objectively reasonable as a standard is clear, then they should make some adjustments. And that is why we have a legislative process.

Miller: Well, what does it mean to you? For example, the Grants Pass law that was the center of this lawsuit – the one that the majority of the Supreme Court said they didn’t have a problem with – said that people couldn’t use blankets, pillows or cardboard boxes while sleeping outside within the city limits. And if they did, they could be fined, hit with park exclusions or criminal trespass charges. In your mind, is that objectively reasonable?

Kotek: Well, I go back to what the law is today in Oregon, which the Supreme Court decision was very specific to the Grants Pass case. But, we have a law in place that says cities, counties, local governments, you have to tell people where they can be. I think the biggest challenge, for example, that we had in the first iteration from the city of Portland when they started their ordinance and it was held up in the court, is they weren’t clear for people about where people could be. They just told them all the hundreds of places they couldn’t be. If you’re experiencing unsheltered homelessness, you need to know where can I be and where can I get services. And I think that’s what you’re seeing in other places.

Miller: It likely is also going to be up to judges to say that this city, their particular ordinances, they don’t pass much of that. They don’t … they go against this state law, but …

Kotek: Right now there’s no precedent.

Miller: Exactly.

Kotek: None of those cases have gone before the court. The court in Multnomah County didn’t rule one way or the other. That could be an opportunity for legislators to have more definition. When I helped on that bill, when I was Speaker of the House, we had folks from the cities, we had advocates there. Everybody sat down and said, what’s the best way to do this to provide clarity for the cities? If it’s not clear, they should go back to the drawing board.

But again, I will say that some cities are doing just fine, they have figured it out. Maybe Portland is more complex because it’s larger, but without court interpretation, perhaps the legislature has to define that.

Miller: But is the point you’re making about the Grants Pass law … that it’s your feeling that in the way the details of law that I just read [are] written, that it doesn’t seem like there is any place where people could publicly camp, so that does go against either the spirit or the letter of Oregon’s law. Is that your read on it?

Kotek: Well, that was the situation in Grants Pass and that case has taken many years to get up to the Supreme Court. But they were basically running people out of town and finding them excessively. So that’s a little different.

Miller: And what I mean … the Supreme Court said that’s totally fine. I’m asking you if you think that is OK under current Oregon law?

Kotek: Under current Oregon law, it is not.

Miller: We have a couple of questions I want to ask you from listeners over the course of this hour. Ryan Hooper asked this question: “It’s been over a year since Executive Order 2303.” In fact, that was January of 2023, so a year-and-a-half or more. He says, “And yet there are still encampments of homeless people. What are you doing to get those people into shelter right now, not 10 years from now?” He says, “Even a congregate shelter is better than a tent.”

So in terms of the biggest emergency on the street, what’s happening?

Kotek: Well, when I put the emergency order into place last year and that we’ve re-upped, we said we set some very clear targets. We exceeded them all in terms of the number of new shelter beds, how many people were rehoused and how many folks that we helped not become homeless in the first place. They were successful there. And what I would say to that listener is we’re digging our way out of a pretty deep hole. We are making progress.

So where I’m focused now is continuing to have the emergency focus around the state, making sure people have targets of making sure we can get people into shelter, into stability, into housing. I think our hardest challenge right now – and this goes to the bigger conversation about housing – is rehousing people, because folks are ready to get rehoused once they’ve been stabilized for three to six months. But they don’t have a place to go. So that is a challenge. That’s why I’m also focused on housing production. But what I would say is we are making progress.

What I’ve been really clear with around the state when I’ve talked to people in all counties is every community has a role to play. We need to have a system, we need to know what we’re trying to achieve and we have to have stable funding to maintain that. This won’t be solved in a year, but we are making progress and we need more housing for people to live in. For those folks who are really struggling, who have been on the streets a long time, who frankly are pretty ill, we also have to talk about behavioral health and we’re doing that too. This isn’t a one-time-only type of thing. You have to help people get into the care they need. They need health care because they are literally traumatized by being on the street.

Miller: You mentioned housing production. Let’s turn there. That’s one of your three biggest issues from the very beginning and still today. At the very beginning of your time as governor, you released this dramatically ambitious goal: 36,000 new homes to be built in Oregon every year, an 80% or so increase from the status quo level of production. In the big picture, where does that effort stand right now?

Kotek: Well, it’s a very specific North Star for us to get to and the newest numbers are showing we’re kind of where we’ve been because we’re trying to get some new tools in place. This year’s legislative session, I had one bill, one priority. It was housing production after my big council from last year came up with a bunch of recommendations. And we were successful. Legislature put significant resources. We’re funding infrastructure improvements. It’s hard to build new housing if you don’t have water and sewer in some places. We said if you meet certain criteria and you need to expand your urban growth boundary for land supply, here’s an opportunity for you to do that. We said let’s reduce red tape. Let’s streamline. We’ve created a new office in the state to hold cities accountable for actually getting production done. And it is a really important start. I anticipate over the next couple of years, we will see that number tick up in terms of housing production.

I think what’s important for Oregonians to know is, unlike any other state in the union, I am trying to focus on all of it. For example, you need housing production, you need land supply. You need infrastructure development. We need a workforce to build it. We need investment capital. We have to get folks who are unhoused into housing. Literally all of it has to be done. And I hope Oregonians know and can be proud of the fact that we are taking all of these things at once, because I don’t think you can solve it without doing it all.

Miller: This is now our third conversation. And I think that in the first two, you’ve emphasized that there’s not going to be a fix for this in one year, or two years, or three years – which seems objectively true. It also seems politically challenging. If you’re trying to convince Oregonians that this long train ride will yield results, let’s keep pushing because things are happening, but they take a while. That’s a hard sell, politically.

Kotek: I think it’s honest. People want me to be honest. I’m pragmatic. I didn’t get a magic wand with the job.

Miller: But I’m curious what you do see then as the potential timeline? So if it takes all of these different levers that you have to pull [and] each one is challenging … even just for example, the land use one alone [that] in the past we’ve talked about. And you’ve been pushed a lot from some of your long-time allies and friends [who]say that you’re not paying enough attention to land use, to environmental rules. We needn’t get into that again. That’s just one example of this, right? That’s an example of the political challenges here.

But to stick with the heart of the question – what do you see as a reasonable, honest timeline, before all of the different things you’re talking about will truly yield fruit?

Kotek: Here’s what I’m going to be looking for next year, in particular. Are our housing start numbers up? Are all of the projects that the legislature funded around infrastructure, shovel-ready projects, on course to be finished? That’s why after the session was over, our team reviewed all of those individual allocations. It’s like, what is the timeline? Some of them were this year. Some of them are next year. Some of them are in 2026. We are trying to put all that in one spot so we can track it better, but I want to see more new housing starts next year.

Miller: So in 2025, what happens if there aren’t more housing starts?

Kotek: Then we’re going to reassess and keep going. And I’m going to ask people, OK, we’ve given a set of tools, we’re clearly not being aggressive enough. I think we’ve put a right mix of opportunities, options, tools for developers – both for profit and nonprofit – for them to improve our housing starts. If it’s not doing it, then we’re going to come back and say this isn’t working, we need more.

Miller: More …

Kotek: I’ve been very clear with people that in this session, when people are pushing back on what I thought was a very specific tool around urban growth boundary expansion … you have to meet certain criteria. 30% of what you would build would have to be affordable, which is a very high standard nationally. I said, let’s see how that works. And if it doesn’t work well, we might have to come back with something else, because people are like, we need more. I’m like, let’s see how it’s working. We have to give it a year and see if it’s doing what we’ve intended it to do.

That’s what you always do in public policy. You have a goal. If it’s not working, you reassess and try something else. I am never going to take my eye off the ball when it comes to housing. It is the number one issue for our state.

Miller: Yeah, I’m curious even just for that one policy piece about a percentage of housing that has to be affordable. Is that good policy?

It has a good intent, right? But, it’s another way to maybe gum up the works. How do you think about even just that policy alone?

Kotek: We will not be successful as a state if all the new housing production is out of reach for people.

Miller: But could you be more successful if you remove some of the governmental fetters and let loose a lot more housing production, that then with the market, means some of it will be affordable … or do you not believe that theory?

Kotek: Well, the private sector will drive certain prices because they have to have a return on investment. One of the key roles for the state and for government in general is on the affordable side at 30% or 60% of median income. The state, if we’re going to meet our goals around providing affordable housing, we do need to weigh in there.

We also need workforce housing and things higher at higher price points. The market will drive some of that, but we have to remove barriers for everyone to be able to develop. So that means hard conversations of, how fast is our permitting going? Can we have all the permitting done at once? I mean, one of my frustrations with Portland is you have multiple permits you have to get. Can we make them simultaneous so the sooner people can get their permits done, they can actually start? So, those are really simple things, but oddly enough, kind of hard to accomplish.

Miller: People in Portland have been talking about streamlining that for years now.

Kotek: We are working on it. I know they have a plan, I will continue to push on them because we have to do that.

But back to your bigger question about affordability. Let me give you an example. I was just in Medford last week and went to New Spirit Village. What’s interesting about New Spirit Village is it is eventually going to be 87 homes in a neighborhood. So it’s a neighborhood of home ownership of smaller homes that people can purchase. And it’s in a land trust, so the overall prices will stay low. If you buy a house and you develop equity – you’ll get to keep the equity if you sell – over time, the price point of the home will come back down based on the land trust model that is there. A tremendous opportunity.

It’s a model I’d like to see around the state because here’s the thing, we have to get away from housing being such an investment motivator, right? We have these large companies in our country buying up property for only one reason: to make money. People need housing. And if we don’t come up with ways to say, we have to have long term affordability, we’re going to price everybody out. And we will never solve our homelessness issue, and we will never solve what I think is creating an economic opportunity for everybody in the state. So there is a role for government.

Honestly, what I really like to see out of the next administration, and hopefully a better Congress, is more help at the federal level because we could use some more federal help to actually do some of those things as well.

Miller: I think sometime we should spend the entire hour on public housing policy.

Kotek: We can talk about public housing all you want.

Miller: I know and I think we should, but I’ve got 15 other things to talk about.

Here’s a question from a member of our audience. Som Subedi wrote on Facebook: “I’ve seen low income Oregonians struggling to understand, apply for and receive essential benefits for food, medical care, housing assistance, childcare and energy assistance. I know different programs have different funding sources and requirements, but why doesn’t the state streamline these resources to make it easier for families? For example, if a family qualifies for medical benefits, they’re automatically evaluated for food, housing or other assistance.”

Kotek: Oh, I totally agree with that. I started my work as an advocate asking those same questions – why can’t we make this easier?

Miller: What was the answer that you got when you asked that question?

Kotek: Well, back in the day, everything was paper and I could bore you with the details of fighting against a 20-page food stamp application. But now everything’s online. I do think we have consolidated to the degree that we can that we have the ability to say, if you’re eligible for this, you could be eligible for these other things as well, but we’re not there yet.

One of the things and one of the reasons I ran for office, for this job, was to improve customer service at the state level. We got great people working in the state government and it can get siloed by funding streams, by agencies. Customer service experience should be the focus of everything we do at the state. And we’re actually working on a customer service policy. When are people going to get responses from folks? I’m not happy about what’s happening at the employment department. I inherited a new system that is still having difficulty getting benefits out for folks. Believe me, I have regular conversations with our agency directors about how much better we can do on customer service, so people can get what they need.

Miller: It’s funny to think about customers. I know what you mean by customer service, constituent service or Oregonian resident service. How do you assess? How do you know if things are working or if they’re not?

Kotek: How long is someone sitting on a phone?

Miller: How do you hear that? How do you find that out?

Kotek: We see the numbers from the employment department for them.

Miller: You ask for them?

Kotek: Oh, yeah, that new system says, well, our response time has improved by two minutes. I’m like, well, keep going. It’s still too long for someone to be sitting on a phone waiting to talk to a live person. In a lot of our benefit programs, how long did it take from application to issuance of the benefits? If we’re not hitting a target, why not? Let’s do better. We do track those kinds of metrics and my expectations for our agency, that’s a goal. Customer service is a goal. You need to hit your targets.

Miller: Let’s turn to the big changes in drug laws. Lawmakers overturned about half of Measure 110, that is the most famous half of the drug decriminalization part. They recriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs in the last legislative session, paving the way for counties to set up so-called deflection programs as a way to keep people out of jail. Counties are getting some state money now to set up those programs. Police can start arresting people and charging them with misdemeanors for drug possession in September, next month.

Speaking of customer service – not maybe the phrase we normally think of in terms of the criminal justice system – how are you going to assess if these new programs are effective?

Kotek: Yeah, good question. I would use the word accountability.

So the legislature listened to Oregonians, made some changes around decriminalization of certain amounts of possession, with the goal of saying we still don’t want folks being their first stop in jail. Is there a way to get people into something else, deflect them into treatment and services? And two-thirds, I think, of counties in the state have said on day one, voluntarily, we will try to set up a deflection program. And we put some money aside – the legislature did.

So, what I’ve been doing is … are we on track? How many counties are doing it? Why are they not doing it? When can they start? Not every county will be ready on September 1 because I think they’re being realistic. For those who are, is that money getting out the door? The applications being reviewed, is the money moving? I don’t want there to be any delay on our end getting them what they need.

And we should understand it’s in the beginning of this new way of doing business. We’ll have to come in for the next two-year budget and say, OK, is it working? Do they need more resources? I don’t think we know yet, but I want to praise everyone across the spectrum, from our law enforcement, our DAs, to our service providers. People have been scrambling to figure this out because they know on September 1, they want to do a better job. And it’s been impressive to watch actually.

Miller: And as you noted, lawmakers gave counties $20 million to set these programs up. Unless I’m mistaken, no money yet for ongoing running of them. It’s likely that some number of people who are arrested for drug possession, who go into deflection programs, will somehow fail out of them and then go into county lockups. But they’d be going into county lockups in counties that have – almost all of them – dropped the number of jail beds that they have. In Multnomah County, there are 200 or so fewer jail beds than there used to be in something like seven or eight years.

How are you thinking about that? There are going to be many more people who the state says should be behind bars for, say, six months. But counties aren’t necessarily equipped right now to handle that influx.

Kotek: I think one of the biggest unknowns in all of this is how many people are we talking about? How many people are law enforcement going to arrest and take them someplace for deflection? How many are going to go straight to jail because they’ve tried a couple times? I don’t think we know at the moment. And certainly, the start-up money is not sufficient for the long-term. It was never meant to be, it was like the last six months of the biennium. So we’ll be back next year talking about that.

I do know that counties are trying to figure that out and some counties are in a different spot. If you’re a very rural, small county, you might be talking about one or two people. So, what are you setting up for that number of people, and can you do that? That’s why the behavioral health side of this equation is super helpful, because I think most folks who connect with people with a substance use issue, don’t want them to go to jail – that’s what Oregonians have said. So it’s really incumbent upon us to make sure that treatment is available, at least regionally, around the state. And that’s one of the things I’ve been focusing on.

When I came in … gosh, it must have been the first couple of months of last year when I first came in. I said, where’s our plan on knowing how much capacity we need, where, for what? And nobody could answer that question. So I said we need to study. We need to say, by region, what are the different types of treatment beds and treatment facilities that we need, both on the mental health and the substance side? And then let’s build towards that.

We now have that plan. That’s what I’m building in my next biennial budget is being like, OK, we know that these regions are short on these types of things. We are going to do that. I don’t want people to forget that it’s not just about what happens when they talk to an officer. The goal is to get people into treatment.

Miller: You were one of the leaders, along with Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, behind this 90-day fentanyl state of emergency in downtown Portland during the first three or so months of this year. We were told that it yielded better collaboration, better communication, better data collection.

But speaking of data, we can look and see that the numbers in terms of fatal overdoses haven’t gone down. They were actually higher post those 90 days than they were during it, and they haven’t gone down since then. What does that tell you?

Kotek: Well, I do know that because of the 90-day fentanyl emergency, we have much tighter data collection on what is happening. So that could be just, now that we’re counting it better, we have a better sense of what’s happening.

Miller: I haven’t seen that that’s the case. I haven’t heard that fatal overdoses were not being tracked at all. I take your point, but I’m not sure that that actually explains the numbers.

Kotek: It might not. But what I will say is I jumped on one of those calls because during the fentanyl emergency … and these have continued … not daily check in calls. But to hear all the different types of providers – emergency responders, the officers, the outreach workers on the street – discussing all the data, it was clear to me that, wow, this might be the first time everyone’s sharing it in real time every single day. And then people can be like, oh, there’s a hot spot or I’m doing this. I need help on that. That was a very significant outcome of this work. I know it might sound a little simplistic, but doesn’t everybody talk to everybody all the time? Actually, they don’t. And I said everybody has to get together on a regular basis and work collaboratively together.

We saw some very specific projects come out of those conversations. We’re obviously committed on the law enforcement side with the state police being there on a regular basis. So I think it’s helpful for people to know that no matter all the good intent, if people aren’t aligned in what they’re doing every single day, you’re not going to have as much success. I think the fentanyl emergency really puts everybody on the same page. And I think we are seeing benefits in downtown Portland because of it.

Miller: Nike and Intel, two huge drivers of Oregon’s economy, they’re both struggling in different but maybe related ways. Their stock prices have dropped, their sales are down and what matters most, I think, to many Oregonians they’re laying off employees. These are huge corporate entities in the state, both just, as themselves, as tent poles, and also as kind of leaders of two sectors that are important for the state: semiconductors, and footwear or sporting goods, apparel.

What does the fact that both of them are struggling right now mean for our future?

Kotek: Well, I do think the economy, not only in Oregon but nationally, is still doing a little bit of a reset, post-pandemic – a little bit of a pandemic hangover. So markets have shifted and supply chains have shifted. Intel and Nike are not going out of business. Obviously, [it] has a human impact for anyone who might be losing their job and getting laid off or taking early retirement. And these are really strong companies. They’re recalibrating. They’re going to be here. And what’s important is they have also spawned very strong sectors in Oregon. The athletic apparel sector – very strong. The semiconductor advanced manufacturing sector – very strong.

So while it might be difficult for Intel and Nike right now, I feel like across our economy in those sectors, we’re in good shape. And I think I will watch it as governor, make sure that, if there’s workforce needs or other investment needs, we’ll keep an eye on it. But I think this is a reset that they will weather and we’ll be fine.

Miller: Sherrin Ungren asked on Facebook: “How do you plan to address the ever increasing huge cost of power, especially for people on fixed income? At this rate, people have to sell their furniture to pay their power bills.”

Just for some context here, rates for PGE and Pacific Power customers went up by about 33% over a recent two-year period. And now, Pacific Power is asking the public utilities commission for a nearly 22% increase for residential customers next year.

I do note that you don’t set the rates. There is a public process to respond to the rate requests by these companies, but this is a huge issue for Oregonians right now. How do you think about it?

Kotek: I’m very concerned when I see the cost of living going up for Oregonians. We saw inflation – while it might have gone down a little bit, cost of food has not gone down, utility prices are up, cost of rent is up. I’m concerned about all those things … insurance rates. So I am watching what’s happening at the PUC. I know there’s a lot of strain on PGE and Pacific Power because of the wildfire work. Let’s figure out how to address that without putting on the backs of the ratepayers.

Miller: What’s an idea for how to do that? If they say we have to pay millions of dollars because we got sued and we lost – every day there are new lawsuits now, timber companies are suing them as well – how do you insulate ratepayers from the costs that these companies are bearing?

Kotek: Well, I think if you have been subject to very, very large lawsuits, ratepayers should not make up for that.

Miller: Shareholders should.

Kotek: Yeah, shareholders should – not ratepayers.

Miller: So that’s the direction for the PUC?

Kotek: Well, I think that’s where we are right now. I think that’s where they are. But this is an issue for California, for Oregon, many, many states. I think the one hidden challenge that no one’s talking about or not a lot is insurance, wildfire, disasters.

Miller: That’s actually something that people on our website wanted to ask you about: homeowners insurance due to wildfires.

Kotek: Overall insurance issues. We need help from the federal government. The legislature has done some bills around making sure that your rates don’t get astronomical if you live in a certain place, but we have more work to do there. Insurance companies, they are private sector. It’s based on what they need to pay out. PUC, for example … I don’t want to get into too much detail because I don’t want to get over my skis, but I do think there is a conversation going on, how do you protect against these increased liabilities so they don’t get passed on to ratepayers?

In the meantime, what I’ve been directing my agencies to do is to protect working class folks, low income households. We passed legislation when I was Speaker to protect the rates of low income ratepayers, to make sure that they aren’t priced out of having a basic need met in terms of utilities. Insurance rates are going up. I’ve directed the Department of Consumer and Business Services, and said, look at those rate increases. Are they really valid? Do we really need all that? Do those companies really need those rate increases? We’ve got to try to tamp down the cost of living increases across the board for Oregonians, because they’re really feeling in the pocketbook and I am concerned about it.

Miller: I want to turn to K-12 education. What’s top of mind for you for Oregon schools just weeks before kids head back to class?

Kotek: Two things: making sure our schools are ready to help our students be as successful as possible, and safety, making sure students feel safe, feel like they belong. Absenteeism is still a large issue. We want kids to show up, be in the classroom and learn. So those are, I think, two big priorities for the coming school year.

I’ve certainly been involved in making sure we’re addressing some of the budgetary issues for our districts. That is more not for this coming school year, but for the next two years and lots on our minds. I want to make sure every kid can read at grade level. I want our kids to show up. I want our teachers to feel supported. I feel like we’re turning the page a little bit on where our schools are. But there are some hard conversations ahead.

Miller: Speaking of the budget questions, in recent months, you’ve been talking about pushing for a change in the way K-12 funding is calculated. The details are actually relatively complicated, but the bottom line, I think, is not. It’s that it would add something like an additional half billion dollars for a two-year budget cycle, which is not insignificant. I mean, it’s a gigantic amount of money and it’s not an insignificant piece of the school’s state school fund.

Two things: Where would that money come from [or] maybe what would it not go to instead? And what would you want it to be spent on?

Kotek: Well, where I start is where are my priorities in the budget? And one of the commitments I made … you mentioned, we haven’t seen each other since October. We had a strike in Portland.

Miller: Just weeks after you and I talked.

Kotek: Right. And other school districts have also been challenged. They haven’t gone on strike but they’ve been in mediation, very difficult budget conversation.

Miller: Salem here came close.

Kotek: Salem had to do some layoffs. Right. It was very difficult.

As governor, as the primary funder because of property tax reform – the state’s money is a big chunk of K-12 – making sure it’s predictable is as close as possible to what the core budgets of districts need to be. That kind of base funding to keep the doors open, keep everybody paid, making sure that number really reflects what districts need, that’s what we’ve been involved in. That’s where that half a billion dollar number comes from. I made a commitment, we’re gonna fix some of the technical issues so the base funding is closer to what districts actually need. I’m committed to putting that in my budget. I don’t know what kind of impact it will have across the board.

Miller: You suggest and the legislature decides in terms of the budget.

Kotek: And I haven’t seen the revenue forecast yet. So I’ll be having to weigh all the different priorities for the state, but it is important for our districts to have predictability and a number that’s closer to what they need to function. Now, I’ve been really clear with folks. It’s not just about making the number bigger. What are we getting for it? What’s the outcome? What’s the accountability there? Remember, I helped to make sure we have a billion dollars more per year in the Student Success Act. That also goes to districts. How is that being spent? Are we seeing the outcomes? We know things can work to improve graduation rates and improve outcomes for our students. So my bargain, as it were with our school districts, I’m going to fight for more money, but I’m going to ask hard questions about what you’re doing with the money.

Miller: What’s an example of a hard question?

Kotek: Well, the accountability – there’s a work group right now that was established by the legislature. It’s probably a little bit behind the funding conversation at the moment. But when you say we’re going to hire teachers to do a certain thing, are we seeing improvements in reading scores and math scores? Are we seeing improvements in attendance? These are very clear things that you can calculate.

Miller: It seems like the tough thing is not the question you’re asking, but what you do with the answer you get from that question.

Kotek: It’s really true, Dave. So we have an interesting situation in Oregon. We want the state to give a lot of money and not ask a lot of questions. We want local control. Well, where are those boundaries? I feel as a governor, local control is not a good enough answer anymore. We have schools who have budget problems because their school boards weren’t really doing their job.

Miller: The first time you and I talked, we delved relatively deeply into this. And it seems to me that you’re a little bit more willing to take a harder line now than you were a year-and-a-half ago to say yes, we will be supportive of local schools. But I guess I’m wondering if you feel more ready to step in as Salem, as ODE, as the state to say, you’re not providing students the education that Oregonians deserve. Do you feel bolder now?

Kotek: For me, it’s always a process. The first step in the process for me was saying, are we doing our part on the funding side for the predictability of the base funding? I feel like I’m answering that question and committing to more resources. The agreement when I do that is to say, are we going to get better outcomes because of it?

I think one of the things in the first year-and-a-half of this job, I’ve realized how impatient I am with change. I want urgency. I want everyone to be uncomfortable and impatient that our numbers are bad. They’re not bad everywhere, but every child has the ability to read. That’s why I’ve invested so much of my time and political capital on early literacy. I’ve said we’ve got to teach better. We have to give educators better tools. We have to spend some dollars in communities on literacy because we have to improve our reading scores. So if people make up anything, it’s more like, I’m impatient for change and I think our students deserve better.

Miller: One of the big issues in schools around the country right now is what to do about cell phones. And this is an increasingly rare, truly bipartisan issue. Florida and California, which cannot have two more different nationally-known governors, have both been addressing this. Education Week says at least 10 states have passed laws that do various things – either ban or restrict students’ use of cell phones in schools statewide or a kind of a lower version that recommends that local districts enact their own bans or restriction policies.

Those are very different ways to go. What do you want to see in Oregon? You’ve called for a statewide policy. You said there should be a statewide policy. I haven’t seen you say what that policy should be. You could just say it’s up to lawmakers or you could say this is what I want to see.

Kotek: You know, there is really strong bipartisan interest – House, Senate, Republican, Democrat – on this issue. So I feel like they are poised to lead. And what I will say is my experience has shown it’s better to have a statewide policy, because if a child moves from district to district, don’t you think they should have the best policy no matter where they go to school based on what the evidence says? And what the evidence is saying is having personal devices in a classroom on a regular basis distracts from learning, and increases incidence of bullying and emotional deregulation. Why wouldn’t every district want to do that? So, I hope legislators go with a statewide policy that every district has to implement.

Miller: Would you support a funded mandate that says if you’re a kid in Oregon school, you can’t have your phone with you and we will buy each of your districts pouches. Kids walk in, they put the phone in the pouch. When they leave, they take the phone, go home and they can be online as much as they want. Would you support that?

Kotek: I think I’m definitely open to that.

Miller: Has this issue affected the way you think about your own cell phone use? I mean, we focus so much on kids. They’re bad for kids, they’re bad for kids. We should do something. It’s adults who are saying this and most of us who are saying this have phones on our persons all the time.

Kotek: Well, I’ve been known … and oh, might have just even been this week, maybe last week, where I’m like, hey, everybody off your phone. I need you to like, nothing is more …

Miller: Your staffers are nodding their heads as we’re saying this.

Kotek: Nothing is more annoying than sitting in a virtual meeting or even in person. I think people are a little less, but it’s like, you can’t be on your phone.

Miller: You’re saying that as a chief executive of the state because you feel like people aren’t listening to you?

Kotek: Yeah. It’s like people need to be paying attention in the meetings. It’s like, as a governor, if I can sit through an hour meeting and not look at my phone, you can do it. So I do think it’s important.

Miller: You answered that question as a manager of other people. But the question was about your own use of phones.

Kotek: Well, I think it’s actually kind of funny. I have a very out of date iPhone that I rarely look at. In fact, I probably need a new one. So I’m a little bit of a Luddite. I don’t spend my time on my devices. I want to go back to the schools though. What’s really kind of intriguing to me is that we do use a lot of devices in our schools now.

Miller: Yeah.

Kotek: The Chromes, the iPads, whatever,

Miller: Yeah. Kids have their tablets. Testing on computers.

Kotek: They are school tools now, right? So getting the message right is important. It’s like, devices aren’t bad, but your personal device, set it aside, focus on what you’re doing. And for students, that means learning when you’re in the classroom.

Miller: This connects to another comment we got on Facebook. Maureen Hinman wrote, “There’s been an increased focus on behavioral health in the legislature, but nearly all investments have focused on adults. When is our state going to make an investment in the mental health of children and youth, especially given our last in the nation ranking of youth mental health?”

Kotek: I really appreciate that question. We have been focusing on the adult side, primarily because we have been trying to assess where we are on the children and youth side, looking at the workforce, looking at the capacity. We will make progress, but I don’t think we completely understand what we need.

Miller: Do you really not understand? Don’t we just don’t we just need more support, more mental health specialists who focus on children, more inpatient and outpatient services? I mean, just more of everything? Or is that too simplistic?

Kotek: Well, we definitely have some young people who are very acutely ill. It’s horrible. We have some serious mental illness and/or substance abuse for young people, and they need very high level needs. And so understanding how we pay our providers differently so they can be available. Sometimes we pay them after the fact. Maybe we should just say, you’re always going to be open when it comes to a kid. We want you to be open no matter what – that’s a funding issue. And that’s something we need to take up.

When it comes to every young person, I’m committed to working on the social and emotional health of our kids in our schools. We’ve been through a traumatic experience as a world, as a country with the pandemic. Kids don’t feel like they belong, they feel isolated. I would also like to spend some time on those broader underlying emotional wellness issues, so we can stave off those more serious issues. That is a different conversation. That’s about giving adults, parents, educators better tools. That’s encouraging young people to talk about it themselves.

I’ve been meeting a lot of young people when I’ve traveled around the state. They’re so inspiring. They know what they need. In fact, one of the reasons I’m so strong on the cell phone thing and why I think it’s really important is I heard from a young person at a conference who’s like, these things are really destroying our lives. Young people know it. They want us, as adults, to protect them and give them the ability to be kids. I know a lot of parents are struggling with their kids right now. So what can we do in the schools to just have better conversations about mental wellness? That will help us, I think, long-term from kids becoming really, really ill.

Miller: I want to turn briefly to the issue of the role that your wife, First Lady Aimee Kotek Wilson, has played or might play in the future in your administration. Three of your top staffers left your office in March after raising concerns about her role. That led to some public questions. And then, in May, you announced that you had shelved plans for the creation of an office of first spouse. So I think it’s worth saying, folks may not know, that versions do exist in other states. This was not an Oregon invention.

I’m curious, first, just how you think – it’s been a little while since all that happened – about that whole episode now?

Kotek: What I think is that people had interest … there was public scrutiny and I think we responded as best we could. I think we could have thought it through some more.

Miller: So when you say “it,” what do you mean?

Kotek: Well, this whole idea. I mean, we haven’t had an active first spouse here for a long time. I’ve been really fascinated in the last couple of days – well, just yesterday – reading about the stories of Gwen Walz, First Lady of Minnesota, wife of Governor Walz, who’s now our vice presidential candidate for the Democrats. She’s been very active in Tim’s administration, right?

Miller: Did you read that with jealousy?

Kotek: No, I read it [and] I just kind of smiled and said, Oregon should have an active first spouse. Look how great it is in Minnesota.

Miller: Why? Why should any state have an active first spouse when we elect you? Minnesotans elected Tim Walz, not your spouses. I mean, that is a serious question.

Kotek: Well, how about this – we do elect me. I was elected. I don’t live in a vacuum. Aimee and I have been married and been together for 20 years. She’s my partner, all the time I was the Speaker of the House. We come as human beings to this conversation. What the Ethics Commission has said here in Oregon is, if a first spouse is a volunteer and has no financial benefit, they can be involved.

Miller: That came out relatively recently.

Kotek: Yeah. And it’s very clear and …

Miller: So did that give you license, either legally or just in yourself, to revisit this and give your wife an expanded role?

Kotek: I think what ‘s been helpful is setting those sideboards, understanding that whatever ethical concerns people had I think has been very clear. Here are the side boards. And she has been a volunteer since day one. There’s been no conflict there. She has been volunteering. So it’s good to know that that is a path to follow.

What I know is we share the same values and the same interests in helping Oregonians. Whatever she does do will be in complete alignment with the priorities that I’ve set, based on what voters have asked me to do. I’m like a coach for a team. I want to make sure we have as many players doing whatever they can. The first lady can have a role. It’s a volunteer role and she can add to the things that I’m working on. I think anytime we get more capacity to do stuff, it’s a good thing.

Miller: How would you ensure that the rest of the folks that work under you feel comfortable, say, voicing concerns they might have? We should say that the issue that she has been most tied to both professionally and personally, and with real interest it seems, is behavioral health issues – one of your key issues. I don’t mean to put down school lunches, but Michelle Obama was known for school lunches, which is less central to the functioning of the federal government than behavioral health is for Oregonians. I only bring that up to say that we’re talking about some of your key priorities.

How do you have her work on something like that, say, and have the other people who are working with you feel comfortable voicing concerns? Or if there’s some staffing issue, how do you deal with that?

Kotek: Well, I think everyone should have a work plan and there should be clear parameters. Remember, the first lady is a social worker, she worked in the field. A lot of my understanding of the challenges out there for very vulnerable people has come from her professional experience elaborating on where we need to have change. I have plenty of staff and there’s plenty to do. Her role would be to augment that, not to get in the way, but to say, like I have a value here because this is an issue she knows about, cares about – and people care about. And I think that’s the key thing.

Miller: We’ve talked about a lot of issues today. There are a lot that we didn’t get to. I’m curious if there’s an issue that is important to the state right now that you think does not get enough attention at the state level.

Kotek: Well, I hear about a lot of things. So I think, probably from the public, we don’t talk about everything that goes on. But here’s one thing that is particularly top of mind and not just because of fires: community resilience. I’ve noticed over the years, it’s an important topic when things are going badly, and then we could somehow walk away from it. We have to stop walking away from it. The world has changed – ice storms, heat waves, fire. Our communities have to be better ready. Individuals have to be better prepared. We’re going to have to have a conversation with the legislature about committing to dollars for how the world is changing, so communities can be resilient and be ready when things go wrong.

This has been a tremendously bad fire season already. More than one-and-a-quarter million acres burned. We’ve been really fortunate in how we’ve been able to protect people and property, but there is a cost. We all have to change how we look at the world. And I think the legislature has to start investing in resilience a lot more.

Miller: Governor Kotek, thank you very much again for your time. I really do appreciate it.

Kotek: You’re welcome.

Miller: That’s Governor Tina Kotek from her office in Salem.

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