STATE OF OREGON

Recovery Plan 

State and Local Fiscal Recovery 

Funds

2021 Report
State of Oregon 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 1

State of Oregon

2021 Recovery Plan

Table of Contents

General Overview.................................................................................................................................2

Executive Summary...................................................................................................................2

Uses of Funds............................................................................................................................3

Promoting Equitable Outcomes .................................................................................................4

Community Engagement ...........................................................................................................6

Labor Practices..........................................................................................................................7

Use of Evidence.........................................................................................................................7

Table of Expenses by Expenditure Category.............................................................................7

Project Inventory..................................................................................................................................8

Example Project ........................................................................................................................8

Additional Projects .....................................................................................................................8

Ineligible Activities: Tax Offset Provision .............................................................................................8
State of Oregon 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 2

GENERAL OVERVIEW

Executive Summary 

On March 11, 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was signed into law by President 

Biden. This Act established both the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund and the 

Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund, which together make up the Coronavirus State and 

Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program. Under ARPA, monies designated for states 

were sent directly to each state government across the country. Generally, monies designated 

for local governments were also sent directly to those local entities; however, monies for some 

smaller jurisdictions were sent to state governments who were then instructed to pass-through 

those amounts to those smaller jurisdictions. These smaller jurisdictions are known as nonentitlement units of local government (NEUs), as defined by the Social Security Act, and 

typically serve populations under 50,000 people.

Under ARPA, States may use their share of State Fiscal Recovery Funds (SFRF) to replace 

revenues lost as a result of the pandemic and to address the economic and public health 

impacts of COVID-19. Under Oregon’s constitution, the power to exercise budgetary control 

over all executive and administrative officers and agencies is granted to the Legislature, 

including federal funds supporting the budget such as those available under ARPA. Since the 

passage of ARPA, the Oregon Legislature deliberated during its 2021 session on the best use 

of SFRF resources and how to use those funds to both respond to the pandemic and position 

Oregon for the future. During the month of April, the Legislative Ways and Means Committee 

held virtual budget hearings across the state organized around the State’s congressional 

districts to listen to Oregonians about how to best use both state funds and SFRF resources.

As a result of those meetings, and Legislative decisions, Oregon has a plan for how to either 

spend or obligate just over 80 percent of its SFRF resources over the next two years. The 

majority of the SFRF allocations were approved across multiple sections of House Bill 5006 

(2021). House Bill 5006 was signed into law by Governor Brown on August 6, 2021.

Each year, the state of Oregon will produce a Recovery Plan Performance Report that will 

provide the federal government and the public with information on the projects and outcomes 

achieved through the use of SLFRF resources. The first report is due by August 31, 2021 and 

covers the period from the state’s award date through July 31, 2021. For every year after 2021, 

the report will be due on July 31, and will cover expenditures from July 1 of the prior year 

through June 30 of the current year. With this approach, the state of Oregon will be reporting on 

a full year’s worth of activities at the end of every July.

The state of Oregon received $2,648,024,988.20 in State Fiscal Recovery Funds on July 23, 

2021. Another $124,175,790.00 was received by the state and is required to be distributed to 

Non-Entitlement Units of Government, as defined by the American Rescue Plan.

Because the state received its SFRF allocation only eight days before the end of the first 

reporting period, and the Legislation authorizing SFRF expenditures did not become law until 

August 6, 2021, Oregon does not have any actual expenditures to report for the period ending 

July 31, 2021. The remainder of this report will focus on the spending plan approved by the 

Legislature for the upcoming two years.
State of Oregon 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 3

Uses of Funds

While no expenditures have occurred to date, the Oregon Legislature allocated, and Governor 

Brown has approved, spending just over 80 percent of Oregon’s $2,648.0 million in SFRF 

resources during the next two years. The spending plan encompasses a wide range of activities 

ranging from public health interventions, economic supports, water/sewer investments and 

revenue replacement for state resources. After this plan, Oregon has approximately $453.1 

million in SFRF resources still available for future allocation.

a. Public Health (EC 1): The SFRF spending plan approved by the Legislature includes 

roughly $169 million for public health expenditures, primarily focused on improving the 

state’s behavioral health system and improving the services and infection control within the 

long-term care system. In addition to the SFRF investments, the state is also investing an 

additional $34 million in CDC federal funds to advance health equity in Oregon’s COVID-19 

responses, including increasing efforts to attract and retain a diverse workforce and expand 

culturally responsive contract tracing and wraparound services. Major components of the 

SFRF investments include:

• Expanding the capacity and diversity of Oregon’s behavioral health workforce ($80 

million). This investment focuses on two strategies. First, providing incentives to 

increase the recruitment and retention of providers in the behavioral health care 

workforce, especially focused on providers who are people of color, tribal members, or 

residents of rural areas who can provide culturally responsive behavioral health services.

Second, the investment provides a grant program to assist individuals who have the 

necessary education but lack the supervised clinical experience to obtain a license.

• Increasing statewide capacity of licensed residential facilities and housing serving 

people with behavioral health conditions ($65 million). Approximately $5 million of these 

investments are specifically targeted at directly reducing health inequities.

• Investments to reduce the risk of transmitting infectious diseases in long term care 

facilities ($14 million) including investments to improve air quality/HVAC systems, 

technology to facilitate virtual visits and telehealth, and reconfiguring rooms to reduce 

disease transmission.

• Improving the skill level and training of workers in the long-term care sector ($10 million).

b. Negative Economic Impacts (EC 2): The SFRF spending plan approved by the Legislature 

includes roughly $304 million in investments to address the negative economic impacts of 

COVID-19. 

• Geographical Priorities ($240 million). All communities in Oregon have felt the economic 

impacts of COVID-19 and in this area the Legislature primarily allowed each specific 

region to identify the priority investments within their jurisdiction. These priorities were 

reported to their respective legislative representatives and then approved as a total 

package. In total, these geographical priorities represent about $240 million in SFRF 

investments.

• Cultural and Community Organizations ($50 million). The legislature approved $50 

million in economic and revenue supports to cultural and community organizations 

throughout the state who have been hard hit by the pandemic’s economic impact.
State of Oregon 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 4

• Emergency Food Supply Stabilization ($14 million). Emergency Food Bank 

organizations have seen dramatic increases in demand as a result of the pandemic. This 

investment will help stabilize those providers.

c. Services to Disproportionately Impacted Communities (EC 3): The legislature did not 

dedicate specific SFRF resources to this category because there were significant other 

federal resources available for this purpose. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic has had 

a significant impact on housing stability throughout the state. The legislature approved 

approximately $302 million in additional federally funded expenditures in this area for the 

following:

• Housing Stabilization Programs ($254 million)

• Multifamily Rental Housing Programs ($15.0 million) funded partially with higher than 

anticipated federal HOME Investment Partnership program receipts.

• Home Ownership Assistance Funds ($33 million)

d. Premium Pay (EC 4): Oregon’s plan does not currently have specific Premium Pay 

incentives funded with SFRF resources.

e. Water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure (EC 5): The SFRF plan approved by the 

Legislature included approximately $316.2 million for water and sewer infrastructure 

investments. This category includes 58 individual projects to improve the water and sewer 

systems of local jurisdictions across the state. In addition to the SFRF investments, the 

legislature dedicated an additional $120 million from the ARPA Capital Projects Fund 

specifically to improve broadband infrastructure across the state. When added together, 

these two funding streams represent a combined $436.2 million in additional investments 

within this category.

f. Revenue Replacement EC 6): The SFRF plan approved by the legislature included roughly 

$1,403.9 million to help cover revenue replacement. These funds are primarily used to 

support public safety and state hospital expenditures, with a smaller amount used for 

various critical infrastructure projects.

Promoting equitable outcomes 

One of the key objectives for Governor Brown during the 2021 legislative session was to keep 

equity at the center of every decision. Oregon has a long history of systemic racism, and the 

events of 2020 have laid bare the need for profound change. In the fall of 2020, Governor 

Brown convened the Racial Justice Council (RJC) to center the perspectives, backgrounds, and 

experiences of communities of color to advance transformational change. Together, the RJC 

developed a Racial Justice Action Plan, which influenced the state’s short, medium, and longterm goals to address structural racism – putting Oregon on a track to build a stronger, fairer, 

and more equitable Oregon where everyone can thrive. The RJC has centered, for the first time, 

the dismantling of systemic racism from our civic institutions at a statewide level, starting with 

advancing the RJC’s budget and policy recommendations.
State of Oregon 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 5

The Council’s recommendations have been organized into seven main categories

• Immigrant and Refugee Services

• Criminal Justice Reform and Police Accountability

• Housing and Homelessness

• Economic Opportunity

• Environmental Equity

• Education Recovery

• Health Equity

Through the advocacy of the RJC, and the leadership of Oregon’s Black, Indigenous and 

People of Color (BIPOC) caucus of elected officials, significant investments were made in each 

of these categories during the 2021 legislative session. Because the work of ending racism will 

be a long process, there were extensive conversations of the best approach to ensure the long 

term sustainability of these initiatives. Many people were concerned that if these efforts were 

solely funded with one-time federal resources from the SFRF, those same programs could 

disappear once the federal SFRF resources was fully spent. Based on this concern, and the 

commitment of the Oregon legislature to invest in long term systemic change, in most cases the 

decision was made to invest the state’s own resources in these efforts in order to lock them into 

the continuing base of state expenditures.

Some highlights of the investments made during the 2021 legislative session include:

• Expanding Homeownership Opportunities ($22 million), increases funds to help provide 

pathways to homeownership for Black, Indigenous, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Asian, Pacific 

Islander, Native American and Tribal communities. This initiative also added co-ops and 

land trust models to Oregon’s homeownership system.

• Access to Capital ($20 million), expands access to capital for small businesses owned 

by communities of color, Tribal, and linguistically-diverse communities by investing in a 

loan loss reserve fund. This establishes a revolving loan fund for businesses 

participating in the Certification Office for Business Inclusion and Diversity (COBID) 

Program.

• Addressing racial and ethnic disparities and supporting student behavioral health in 

public schools ($892 million), provides grants from the state Student Investment Account 

to every Oregon school district to implement community-informed plans to address racial 

disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes and to provide social, emotional 

and mental health supports for BIPOC students, tribal students, emerging bilingual 

students, students navigating poverty and homelessness, foster youth and other 

traditionally underserved students.

• Investing in community partnerships through Statewide Equity Initiatives ($23 million), 

funds statewide student success plan grants for African/Black students and American 

Indian/Alaska Native students, provides investment in the new Latino/a/x Student 

Success Plan, and provides for a new LGBTQ2SIA+ Student Success Plan.

• Accelerating statewide progress toward achieving the goals of the Educator Equity Act

($31 million), provides resources to expand school district and higher education 
State of Oregon 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 6

partnerships, including grow your own programs, for the recruitment, preparation and 

retention of teachers and school administrators of color.

• Cover All People ($100 million), expands Oregon Health Plan-like health care coverage 

to undocumented adults, DACA recipients, legal permanent residents, and young adults 

who age out of Cover All Kids.

• Data Justice Act ($18 million), requires coordinated care organizations, health care 

providers, and health insurers, to collect data on race, ethnicity, preferred spoken and 

written languages, disability status, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

• Behavioral Health Workforce Diversification ($80 million), provides incentives to increase 

recruitment and retention of the mental health workforce, including pipeline 

development, scholarships for undergraduates and stipends for graduate students, loan 

repayments and retention activities. This specifically addresses incentives for culturally 

responsive behavioral health services.

• Community Behavioral Health Services ($10 million), establishes peer run and 

community-based services that ensure access to culturally specific and culturally 

responsive behavioral health services for people of color, tribal communities and people 

with lived experience, medical reimbursement for tribal-based practices, and start-up 

funding for behavioral health treatment programs that provide integrated co-occurring 

disorder treatment.

These investments are simply a highlight of some of the investments approved by the Oregon 

Legislature. In addition, during the 2021 legislative session the role of the RJC was codified to 

provide a forum for continued accountability in Oregon’s efforts to end racism. As mentioned 

above, these investments are not simply funded with one time SFRF resources, but instead are 

mainly focused on long term sustainable change in how services are delivered to Oregonians.

Community Engagement 

In developing its plan to allocate SFRF resources over the coming two years, the Legislature 

engaged stakeholder and constituent groups in a variety of ways to gather a diverse set of 

ideas. At the same time ARPA was being approved by Congress, state legislatures were forced 

to shift from historical public hearing formats to new ways of gathering public input. Public 

hearings themselves moved to virtual formats, which allowed a new segment of the population 

to attend and provide input into the decision-making process. In many ways, people who were 

historically unable to travel to the state capitol to provide public input found the new process 

more accessible and less intimidating. Witnesses throughout the session commented the new 

format allowed them to overcome both the limitations of physical travel to the state capitol and 

the emotional trauma some feel from being forced to speak publicly about issues they cared 

about deeply. In addition to the virtual hearings, the expanded use of electronic written 

testimony was allowed for those who chose not to appear virtually. Historical advocacy and 

stakeholder groups continued to have access to their elected officials, but a new group of 

individuals and organizations were able to access the process as well.

Specific to the use of SFRF resources, the legislature also held virtual budget hearings across 

the state organized by congressional district to gather regional input on the state budget. Each 

of these virtual regional meetings was highly attended and input was provided on specific 
State of Oregon 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 7

regional priorities, as well as statewide initiatives for the use of SFRF resources. In addition, 

Governor Brown’s office held meetings around the state through her regional solutions teams, 

made up of local public officials, non-profits and businesses to identify priorities in Oregon’s 

eight regions as well as with the Racial Justice Council’s Committees mentioned above.

Labor Practices 

Oregon already has an established history of strong labor standards. Building on this existing 

framework, the Oregon legislature added specific requirements for capital improvement projects 

related to water, sewer, broadband and transportation with an estimated project cost of at least 

$10 million and that are funded with at least $750,000 in ARPA funds. These additional 

requirements include:

• Project Labor Agreements that at a minimum provide for payment of wages at or above 

the prevailing rate of wage;

• Employment of apprentices to perform 15 percent of the work hours that workers in 

apprenticeable occupations perform under the contract;

• Establishment and execution of a plan for outreach, recruitment and retention of women, 

people of color and veterans to perform work under the contract; and

• Require any subcontractor engaged by the contractor to also abide by these 

requirements.

These specific requirements were included in House Bill 3011 (2021). The measure provides

exemptions under certain circumstances, but the intent is to promote effective projects while at 

the same time creating strong employment opportunities for workers with the transition through 

the COVID-19 pandemic. By investing in apprenticeships and expanding women, BIPOC owned 

and veteran owned businesses, Oregon is positioning the workforce for continued growth in the 

future.

Use of Evidence 

Many of the projects approved by the legislature as part of Oregon’s SFRF plan are based on 

preliminary evidence that supports the conclusion the program implementation will achieve the 

desired outcome. While the projects in the overall plan have been approved, these projects are 

still at the planning stage and will be more fully developed as the state goes through the process 

of executing grant agreements with the various grantees approved by the Legislature. Through 

the grant agreement process, the specifics on how data will be collected by the grantee and 

used for program evaluation will be more fully developed. Because Oregon does not yet have 

executed agreements, Oregon does not have specific data to present on the use of evidence for 

the reporting period ending July 31, 2021.
State of Oregon 2021 Recovery Plan Performance Report 8

Table of Expenses by Expenditure Category

Because Oregon has no expenditures for the reporting period from the award date through July 

31, 2021, there is no expenditure data to report in the Expenses by Expenditure Category 

Table. Expenditures are anticipated to begin in August 2021 with Transfers to Non-entitlement 

Units (Expenditure Category 7.4) and then increase for other grantees after that time.

Project Inventory 

As mentioned above, Oregon does not have any expenditures for the reporting period from the 

award date through July 31, 2021. In addition, Oregon is in the process of gathering detailed 

project descriptions that will be used to execute subrecipient and beneficiaries agreements with 

the various grantees approved by the Legislature. These agreements and the information 

contained within them will be the basis of the Project Inventory Oregon will use for future 

Performance Reports. At this time, Oregon has no projects to include for the reporting period 

ending July 31, 2021.

Performance Report

Because Oregon has no program expenditures for the reporting period ending July 31, 

2021, there are no key project performance indicators to report during this reporting period.

Ineligible Activities: Tax Offset Provision (States and territories only)

Oregon has no Tax Offset Provisions to report for the reporting period ending July 31, 2021.