Tualatin's lobby team briefs council on state special session, budget pressures and federal funding outlook

Thorn Run Partners representatives briefed the Tualatin City Council on state and federal activity on Aug. 25, saying shrinking revenue forecasts and an imminent special legislative session make transportation and Medicaid priorities to watch.

Deputy City Manager Megan George introduced Thorn Run and said the firm was retained to represent Tualatin in Salem and Washington, D.C. Tyler Janzen, vice president with Thorn Run Partners, summarized the long 2025 Oregon legislative session and the shift in the capital’s tone as revenue forecasts tightened. “This was the first session since 2011 where we saw the quarterly revenue estimate that comes out in May actually decrease from the quarterly revenue estimate that comes out in March,” Janzen said.

The presentation laid out several items of immediate interest to the city. Thorn Run described a coming special session transportation package referred to as LC 2 that, in its current form, would include a 6-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase, increases to vehicle title and registration fees, measures to accelerate a road‑user charge for electric and hybrid vehicles, and a 0.1 percentage‑point payroll tax to help fund transit. Janzen said the proposal preserves Oregon’s 50/30/20 split of State Highway Trust Fund revenue with local governments — a provision local officials pushed to protect after last‑minute changes threatened that sharing arrangement at the end of the long session.

Leah Navarro of Thorn Run told council that Tualatin secured a state award of $1,750,000 in general‑fund dollars for a city priority project (as presented to the council). Navarro also cautioned that the coming short session will operate in a tighter fiscal environment; she warned of “a pretty big budget hole” at the state level driven in part by Medicaid-related changes and federal policy shifts.

On federal matters Dan Bates of Thorn Run summarized uncertainty around Congress’s appropriations process and how that could affect community projects. He said many community‑project allocations could be at risk if Congress passes long continuing resolutions rather than an omnibus appropriations bill; he also noted that Representative Salinas had secured $250,000 in one House transportation bill for the Borland project, below the $3 million the city requested.

Council members asked about specific elements of LC 2. In response to Council President Cherilyn Pratt’s question about whether the package includes protections preventing ODOT from reallocating operations funds to capital projects, Janzen said he had not “sat with a fine tooth comb” through the draft but explained the stated intent of the short‑term package is to dedicate funds to operations and maintenance. On federal budget risks, Navarro estimated the Medicaid changes under discussion could create as much as a $15 billion impact to state budgets nationally over the next 10 years; she cautioned that figure referred to a national projection raised during the meeting.

Thorn Run recommended continued engagement with the city’s legislative delegation and with county and state associations to defend revenue sharing and community project lines.

The council received the update; there was no council action required during the presentation.