Business Oregon seeks operating funds, larger EDMS ask at March 13 subcommittee meeting

Co-chair Gomberg opened the March 13 Transportation and Economic Development Subcommittee meeting and invited Oregon Business Development Department Director Sapon Jeng to present the agency—s budget overview and operations requests.

For the record, Sapon Jeng, director of the Oregon Business Development Department (Business Oregon), said the governor—s recommended budget totals $2.1 billion for the next biennium. Jeng described a set of operations requests that include funding for strategic-plan implementation, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work, and support for the agency—s Economic Development Management System (EDMS).

Jeng said the agency is asking for roughly $350,000 to advance work tied to its three-year strategic plan and to implement its DEI commitments. "One particular priority that is really important to us is leadership development in Oregon's economic development strategy," Jeng said. She added the $350,000 would support tactics, action steps and regular commission updates as the agency implements 25 strategies across seven priorities developed with stakeholder input.

Nut graf: The testimony laid out why Business Oregon argues for modest increases to operations to maintain and professionalize staff capacity while advancing a state-level economic development leadership role; it also flagged a larger request to finish and make public the agency—s EDMS platform.

Most of the hearing concentrated on two operational themes. First, Jeng described the agency—s effort to implement its strategic plan and DEI plan, saying funds would pay for assessments of regional-state efforts, staff training, vendor contracts and program tools. Second, she updated the panel on the EDMS: Business Oregon initially proposed a 17-month implementation in two release phases and told the panel the governor—s recommended package included $4,650,000 for EDMS while the agency—s internal request is larger to reflect added licensing, platform and staff-support costs.

Representative Watanabe asked whether the EDMS request would be a one-time ask or a recurring maintenance expense. Jeng replied that the development phase funding would be concentrated in the current and next biennium, but the agency expects to return with maintenance and licensing requests for ongoing operational costs after the system is delivered. "We will come back and ask for the money, but not for the development of the project itself, but to maintain and hopefully by then we'll be able to run the project," she said, noting a target to reach a stage-gate milestone and work with Enterprise Information Services toward a 2027 finish.

Jeng also described seven operations positions the agency is requesting to convert or make permanent, including human resources and fiscal staff, and said the request is tied to managing roughly 200 employees. She noted some positions are currently limited-duration and the request aims to retain institutional knowledge post-pandemic.

The director emphasized that the EDMS implementation will be delivered in phased releases: an internal release focused on core functionality and a later public-facing portal to give external users access to project information and applications. Jeng said the agency has worked closely with DAS— Enterprise Information Services and DAS CFO staff on staffing and technical plans.

Ending: The committee took no formal action during this information meeting; Jeng invited subject-matter presenters to continue the agenda and the committee planned to reconvene on March 17 to continue review of Business Oregon—s budget packages.