Mar 25, 2025 | AOC Advocacy
The Joint Committee on Ways and Means kicked off their 2025 community budget hearing meetings on Saturday, March 22, in Gresham. Legislators are travelling around the state to hear from community members about what programs should be prioritized this budget cycle. The Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) encourages members to sign up and testify about your community needs and AOC’s top priority budget items this session. Below are talking points on AOC’s 2025 budget priorities and the committee hearing schedule.
JOINT COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS ROADSHOW SCHEDULE
Warm Springs
Friday, April 4, 5-7 p.m.
Old Warm Springs Elementary School
Members of the public can register to testify here
La Grande
Friday, April 11, 5-7 p.m.
Eastern Oregon University, Hoke Union Building #339
Members of the public can register to testify here
Salem, Statewide Virtual Testimony Prioritized
Wednesday, April 16, 5-7 p.m.
Oregon State Capitol Building, Hearing Room F
Members of the public can register to testify here
Klamath Falls
Friday, April 25, 5-7 p.m.
Klamath Community College, Building 4 Commons
Members of the public can register to testify here
AOC 2025 BUDGET PRIORITIES TALKING POINTS
Mar 25, 2025 | AOC News, NACo
The Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) invites Oregon counties to join us as we celebrate National County Government Month (NCGM) during the month of April to showcase how counties achieve healthy, safe, and vibrant communities. Highlight your effective or innovative county programs and raise public awareness of services provided to the community through news stories, outreach events, and on your social media. Show your community why counties matter and remember to use the hashtag #NCGM and tag AOC (@OregonCounties) in your social posts.
Every Oregonian lives in a county and benefits from their county government services. Use AOC’s Shared Services Chart to show the wide range of public services Oregon counties provide, such as:
- Counties own and maintain the most road miles in the state
- County public works, building, and planning departments are critical components of community and housing development
- Counties are the local mental health and public health authorities
- The county assessor and tax collector functions support every taxing district
- County clerks run all elections
- Counties house the district attorney, sheriff, and circuit courts
Since 1991, the National Association of Counties (NACo) has encouraged counties to actively promote county roles and responsibilities in serving residents. NACo offers many tools to help tell the county story, inspire civic engagement and educate a wide range of audiences about county government. View NACo’s NCGM toolkit for ideas, sample social posts, county fact sheets, and many more resources to help your county celebrate.
Contributed by: Communication Coordinator Erin Good
Mar 25, 2025 | OACES, Transportation
The Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) and the Oregon Association of County Engineers and Surveyors (OACES) worked with the Legislature to pass House Bill 2154, making the County Safety Corridor Program permanent.
The top priority of every county road department is ensuring Oregonians can get to where they are going safely on our roads. Rural county roadways face significant safety challenges from limited cell phone reception, longer emergency response times, simpler roadway infrastructure, and risky driver behaviors. County roads suffered 719 fatal and serious injury crashes in 2022. While small-scale crashes are concentrated in urban areas, rural county roads see 74% of county road fatalities, and when vehicle crashes occur there, the risk of fatalities is significantly higher than on urban roadways.
In 2019, House Bill 3213 established the County Safety Corridor Advisory Group and launched the Safety Corridor Pilot Program to design and test safety corridors aimed at improving rural traffic safety. Safety corridors are short stretches of road that pair doubled fines, engineered safety improvements, education and outreach strategies, and increased enforcement on a county road with a history of fatal or serious crashes.
County road officials, county sheriffs, emergency response officials, the Oregon Department of Transportation, and AOC came together to develop the pilot program and recruit counties to put this idea into practice.
Two safety corridors were launched by the pilot program, with Lane County and Marion County taking the lead on this traffic safety intervention. With Marion County’s emphasis on engineering improvements and Lane County’s emphasis on public education campaigns, both models proved to be highly successful.
Fatal and serious injury crashes were severely reduced along both county safety corridors. These successes are all the more impressive when compared to state wide crash data, which showed increases in fatal and serious injury crashes across the transportation system during the same timeframe.
The pilot program demonstrated that doubled traffic fines, in conjunction with road signs, outreach, and enforcement, led to short-term successes on two stretches of county roadway that had a high incidence of fatal and serious injury crashes.
We are excited that this lifesaving and practical tool will now be available to all Oregon counties as a standing fixture in state law.
Contributed by: Jordan Cole | Policy Analyst
Photo credit: New safety corridor in place by ODOT/ CC by 2.0.
Mar 11, 2025 | AOC Advocacy
Since the 2025 Legislature gaveled into session seven weeks ago a record number of bills have been introduced – well over 3,200. The Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) is tracking over 2,200 bills that have a potential impact on county budgets, services, or governance. The AOC Legislative Affairs Department has been in the Capitol every day advocating on behalf of county governments and AOC’s 2025 priorities.
Two of AOC’s top priorities will receive their first public hearings this week:
- House Bill 3518 – Modernizing County Assessment Funding
This bill modernizes the funding mechanisms that support the County Assessment Function Funding Assistance (CAFFA) Program. Introduced as a House Revenue Committee bill, a public hearing will be held on Tuesday, March 11, at 3 p.m. An action alert was sent last week to encourage all counties to submit testimony in support. A one-pager with background and a summary of the concept can be found here.
- House Bill 5004 – Funding Community Corrections
The Department of Corrections (DOC) budget, House Bill 5004 and Policy Option Package (POP) 102 which includes $68 million to fully fund Community Corrections, will be heard in the Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee on Public Safety on Thursday, March 13, at 8 a.m. AOC is working closely with the DOC and the Oregon Association of Community Corrections Directors to advocate for POP 102 and full funding of the cost study conducted this summer. An action alert will be sent out this week to encourage testimony in support.
Additionally, two bills introduced at AOC’s request advanced out of the House last week and now move on to the Senate for consideration.
- House Bill 3175 allows county governing bodies to increase the document recording fees that fund our County Surveyors Public Land Corner Preservation Programs and passed off of the House Floor 47-9.
- House Bill 2154 makes the County Safety Corridor Pilot Program permanent and passed out of the House last week with only one nay vote.
AOC members are encouraged to stay tuned for action alerts related to priority bills and Legislative Session email updates with details on dozens of bills on which the AOC Legislative Affairs Department has engaged so far this session.
Contributed by: Mallorie Roberts | Legislative Affairs Director
Mar 10, 2025 | AOC News
The Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) strengthened its legislative advocacy with the addition of Joe Casey on Feb. 25, as legislative affairs coordinator.
With a strong background in public policy, regulatory work, and legislative analysis, Joe brings valuable experience as a campaign manager and legislative staffer. His expertise will support advancing AOC’s policy priorities during the 2025 legislative session.
AOC Executive Director Gina Nikkel expressed her enthusiasm, saying, “Joe’s deep understanding of policy and legislative processes make him an invaluable asset to AOC’s advocacy efforts.”
Contributed by: Erin Good | Communications Coordinator
