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Subcommittee advances budget and performance changes for Long‑Term Care Ombudsman
Summary
The Joint Ways and Means Human Services Subcommittee moved House Bill 5,020, approving LFO budget recommendations, changes to key performance measures and a dash 1 amendment adding specific fund amounts and positions; the package passed the work session with no recorded objections and will go to the full committee.
The Joint Ways and Means Human Services Subcommittee on May 28 approved the Legislative Fiscal Office's recommendation for House Bill 5,020, the budget bill for the Long‑Term Care Ombudsman program, and adopted a dash 1 amendment providing specific general and other fund amounts and preserving 41 positions.
Gregory Jolivette of the Legislative Fiscal Office told the subcommittee the LFO recommended a total funds budget of $17,532,418 and 41 positions (40.5 FTE), a 13.9% increase over the 2023'025 legislatively approved budget and a 12.1% increase over the 2025'027 current service level. Jolivette identified two notable adjustments: a $210,000 general‑fund decrease for rent savings and a $2,103,043 increase to support five permanent full‑time positions in the Oregon Public Guardian program.
The recommendation also included changes to key performance measures. Jolivette said the LFO recommended adding six new measures and deleting three existing measures, including three tied to the Oregon Public Guardian program to better track impacts on systems such as law enforcement and hospitals. For the Residential Facilities Ombudsman, the LFO proposed a measure to track response times and another to count annual facility visits. Jolivette recommended lowering the initial complaint response target from 1.5 business days to 1 business day because the agency has consistently met the faster standard.
On volunteer metrics, the LFO recommended lowering targets that reflected pre‑COVID levels. The target share of facilities assigned a volunteer would move from 70% to 50% (last reported assignment was 33%), and the annual volunteer hours target would fall from 29,000 to 17,000 (last reported 13,500 hours).
A dash 1 amendment adopted in the work session specified $16,187,279 general fund and $1,345,139 other funds while maintaining 41 positions (40.5 FTE). A motion to move HB 5,020 as amended to the Ways and Means full committee passed in the work session with no objections recorded. The subcommittee chair noted enthusiasm for including five permanent full‑time positions in the package and assigned carriers to take the bill to the Senate and House floors.
The subcommittee recorded Representative Sharp asking a clarification question about the volunteer‑hours target: "On the volunteer hours did you say 29,000 or 20,000?" Jolivette confirmed the current target was "29,000." The record does not show further amendments to targets beyond the LFO recommendations adopted in this session.
The action advances HB 5,020 to the full Ways and Means committee for consideration.
