Subcommittee Acknowledges OHCS Expenditure Report; Members Press for Recipient List and Oversight
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Summary
The Joint Ways and Means subcommittee acknowledged receipt of Oregon Housing and Community Services’ expenditures-and-outcomes report, pressed the agency for a list of grantees and oversight criteria after press reports of whistleblower concerns, and voted 7–0 (1 excused) to accept the report.
The Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee on Transportation and Economic Development on Feb. 19 acknowledged receipt of Oregon Housing and Community Services’ expenditures-and-outcomes report and urged follow-up on grantee oversight after a legislator cited a whistleblower allegation.
Legislative Fiscal Office staff and OHCS officials briefed the committee on spending patterns from the 2325 biennium and commitments in 2527, with OHCS focusing on general fund and bond proceeds. Matthew Harris, chief financial officer for OHCS, summarized large 2325 investments, including about $721.7 million for housing-supply strategies (including capital for homeownership, rental and permanent supportive housing) and roughly $349.6 million for emergency homeless response, a package that Harris said included approximately $85.2 million to add around 600 shelter beds and rehouse about 1,200 unsheltered households.
Why it matters: committee members said taxpayers deserve clarity about who received legislative funds and how the money was used. Senator McLean said she had seen media reports alleging possible misuse and asked for the list of nonprofit and other recipients. "I saw recently in the news that there has been a whistleblower about at least one of those recipients," McLean said, calling for follow-up. OHCS representatives said they would provide the full list of grantees and described their fiscal monitoring tools, noting they perform risk-based physical and financial monitoring and "we do claw back funds when there are situations where we find out that the money was used improperly," a department official said.
The committee discussion also covered why some line items remain underspent. OHCS officials explained that some funds were intentionally structured as a reserve (for example, a landlord-guarantee fund designed to compensate landlords for unit damage and therefore not expected to be fully expended), other investments were set up to transfer to other fund accounts rather than revert at fiscal year end, and some grantees returned funds after staffing losses prevented planned spending.
On program outcomes, OHCS representatives said most emergency-homelessness and homelessness-service funding was fully utilized; capital projects typically draw down over multiple years and therefore remain partially unspent while under construction. OHCS also described its reporting improvements, including public dashboards and a semiannual legislative expenditure-and-outcomes spreadsheet intended to give clearer comparisons between appropriated funds and awarded amounts.
Action: the DAS Chief Financial Office and the Legislative Fiscal Office recommended the committee "acknowledge receipt" of the OHCS report. Co-chair Gomberg moved the LFO recommendation; the roll call vote accepted the report 7–0 with one member excused.
What’s next: Committee members asked OHCS to supply the requested grantee list and to share its compliance and risk-based monitoring criteria so legislators can evaluate how the agency verifies expenditures and pursues clawbacks when necessary. The committee did not take further action at the Feb. 19 meeting.