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March 21, 2020
Dear Neighbors and Friends:
I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends.
I was hoping to get this newsletter out yesterday, but Friday turned out to be another incredibly busy day on the Coronavirus front. For me, it began at 7 am with a national briefing on the just-passed federal HR 6201, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), the first of the projected three big pieces of legislation slated to be passed by Congress. It ended at 7 pm with Governor Brown, Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury, and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler holding a press conference to reveal the new Stay Home, Stay Safe approach to social distancing. In between was a videoconference with legislative counterparts from around the country, the OHA daily legislative briefing, and the Legislative Joint Committee on Coronavirus Response. Whew!
I’ll be sharing a lot of what I learned with you in this newsletter.
Throughout this newsletter, you’ll likely hear impatience with those who are not yet taking this disease as seriously as they should. Indeed, they are ultimately putting the rest of us, including their own neighbors and loved ones at risk with every unnecessary point of close contact. I’m receiving MANY complaints from constituents about kids on playground equipment, groups of people sharing food and drinks and even smokes. They’re scared, and they should be.
But I also don’t want us to lose sight of the MANY examples that we’re already seeing of generosity, accommodation, and commitment, people and groups really stepping us and trying to make us better able to handle this crisis. Obviously, the medical professionals, first responders, National Guard, and others working overtime to prepare for the surge in cases that is coming. But others as well.
Lots of Oregon businesses and organizations are coming forward and offering the Personal Protective Equipment that is already in short supply, including my friends in Portland Community College’s health programs, who have just donated 12,000 items, including gloves, masks, and wipes. Other colleges, including Linfield, are doing the same. Multnomah County and Portland Fire and Rescue have set up a PPE collection process that is already receiving a variety of items, including 500 respirators from Stumptown Coffee. You can read about it and find out how you can help here.
I’ve heard a number of stories of banks working out accommodations with individual and commercial borrowers to help them get through the crisis. My own credit union (OnPoint) is allowing no-fee deferments on many of its loans, and is working on extending that to first mortgages and other loans. I’m sure that other credit unions are doing the same.
Many Oregonians, including many who are idled by work closures, are stepping up and volunteering to help step up the infrastructure to lessen the impact of the disease. Medical and nursing students at OHSU, whose classes have been put on hold, are volunteering to provide childcare for the children of critical medical workers. Here is a great story about the effort to turn part of the Convention Center into an emergency shelter for those in need.
We’re all in this together.
#Stay Home Stay Healthy
Let me start with the last news item from yesterday. At the end of the day, Governor Brown, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, and Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury held a joint press conference to communicate the need for people to dramatically reduce their contact with others immediately. They clearly wanted that message to get out before the weekend. They also wanted us to know that further action would be announced on Monday.
Several states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey) and local governments have already declared “shelter-in-place” policies, and many more are contemplating taking this step. Washington and Texas both seem close. A trio of OHSU leaders recommended to the legislative joint committee yesterday that Oregon join them. If we don’t get people to stop frequenting non-essential businesses or engaging in group activities of any kind, we will remain on track to suffer the same horrible fate as Spain and Italy are now experiencing.
There is a certain amount of misunderstanding of what shelter-in-place means in these other states. It’s not martial law or a lockdown. While there is some variation among the jurisdictions, it generally does mean that all non-essential businesses must end their in-person operations, not just restaurants and bars. (To determine which businesses are “essential” and which are “non-essential,” California is using the list of business sectors identified by the Department of Homeland Security as “essential.”) Individuals are still allowed to leave their homes for exercise and to pick up needed grocery, pharmacy, and other essential items. Law enforcement is not arresting people for violating the order, but businesses that remain open will be subject to penalties.
As I mentioned in Thursday’s newsletter, Portland has already been planning for this eventuality, and the Mayor made it clear that he is prepared to move forward on Monday. Chair Kafoury is clearly in the same place now. And I suspect that the Governor will be announcing something similar on Monday as well. Her caution around declaring a statewide policy like this is understandable—expanding the number of businesses that will be shut down will have enormous economic consequences and will weigh heavily on affected workers and their families. But it seems increasingly necessary. Voluntary distancing does not seem to be enough.
The movement in this direction seems inexorable. This morning a group of around 25 Portland-area mayors called for a strict statewide standard. In the words of Gresham Mayor Shane Bemis, “The time for action is now. Delaying this order puts our residents, our first responders and our healthcare system at extreme risk.”
Along with a likely order or series of orders on Monday, you should also expect a big public information campaign, using public service announcements, ads, and social media.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS UPDATE
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The number of confirmed cases as of today is 137, up by 23 from yesterday. We also learned of another death from the virus, a 70-year-old woman in Marion County, bringing the total number of deaths in Oregon to 4. The OHA website will give you the latest numbers and more detailed information.
- Today we received word that the Small Business Administration has approved the Governor’s request to have all of Oregon come under a Major Disaster Declaration, making small businesses eligible for small business loans. For those who need to access the program, here is a link to the Disaster Loan Assistance Program.
- The other day I mentioned that federal taxes still needed to be filed by April 15, but payments could be deferred without penalty or interest until July 15. Now the deadline for filing has also been deferred. Although an announcement has not yet been made, the same timeline will almost certainly be the same for state taxes.
- Remember, though, that if you haven’t filed yet, you should be receiving a kicker credit this year; the sooner you file, the sooner you can access the credit.
- The Governor’s office is working with DMV on options to ensure Oregonians who have expiring drivers’ licenses or need vehicle registrations and trip permits have more options.
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OHA has revamped its Covid-19 website. If you haven’t looked at it in the last couple of days, I’d suggest you check it out. It is FULL of useful, easy-to-access information. Here is a helpful Q&A regarding coronavirus testing.
For Those in Need of Unemployment Insurance (UI) Assistance, There Are New Rules
As you know, the number of Oregonians seeking Unemployment benefits is soaring. In addition, a number of workers have not yet been laid off, but have seen their hours (and pay) severely reduced. Our existing UI rules don’t exactly fit this current crisis in a number of ways (e.g., workers who must leave work in order to care for children). Fortunately, the Employment Department has been able to respond quickly to the situation and has just issued emergency rules to deal with it. Here are two documents that help explain them:
Fortunately, Oregon’s UI system was among the nation’s best funded going into the crisis, but even we will be stressed if the situation continues for a long time. Congress is currently working on legislation that will provide greater funding for the states and ideally added flexibility in who can be covered and how.
Speaking of the Federal Government
As I mentioned above, I started my day yesterday with a briefing on the new Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) from the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. HR 6201 adjusts the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to make workers better able to take needed time off during the pandemic and creates a temporary 14-day paid sick leave program for those working for firms with fewer than 500 employees. Employers are required to offer the benefit and will receive a tax credit from the federal government for their expenses. Here is a plain-language explanation of what’s in the bill. Here is one focused on the tax credit.
The briefing was in part designed to give policy and business professionals an overview of what is contained in HR 6201, but more so the opportunity to submit questions on aspects of the bill that are confusing or at least not yet entirely clear. They are many. (Not unusual for major pieces of legislation that are put together quickly and are the result of a number of compromises and last-minute decisions.)
As a result, the rules that will be written by the Department of Labor to implement the new policies will be extremely important. The questions that were submitted during the hearing were designed to help the agency rule-makers provide as much clarity as possible in the rules. The rules are due out on April 2.
Some of the questions asked included
- What if the worker is working for a company (or lives in a state like Oregon) that already provides paid sick leave? Does this replace those benefits, or is it stacked on top of them?
- What if a worker has already been laid off?
- What if the business closes or has already closed? Is there an ongoing obligation to their workers?
- The bill allows the department to grant exemptions for companies with fewer than 50 employees and it is determined that granting paid time off would “jeopardize the viability of the enterprise.” How exactly will that determination be made?
One thing the rule-making cannot change is the exclusion of workers who work for firms with a workforce greater than 500 and the likely exclusion of many workers who work for firms with fewer than 50. Those exclusions are the unfortunate product of partisan concessions that were required to pass the bill and get it signed by the President. Here is a sobering article pointing out the program’s limitations. Fortunately, some of these excluded workers in Oregon will at least have access to a week’s paid sick leave as a result of the bill that we passed in 2015.
Special Joint Task Force Holds Second Meeting
The Special Joint Task Force on Coronavirus Response met on Friday for the second time. It heard a very clear and sobering presentation from several OHSU doctors related to the modeling that they have done that predicts a “surge” of infections and hospitalizations beginning the middle of April (April 16 to be specific). It received a detailed status report on the incident command structure that I discussed above from Andrew Phelps, one of the three team leaders. And the task force began a detailed discussion of a set of 25 policy and funding proposals assembled by the task force co-chairs, Senator Arnie Roblan (D-Coos Bay) and Representative Paul Holvey (D-Eugene). They made it through the first 15 and will continue the discussion Monday morning at 9. A Tuesday morning meeting is also scheduled.
I’ve run out of time to give you a more detailed discussion of what was covered by the task force yesterday. I’ll try to do that tomorrow.
In the meantime, if you’d like to watch yesterday’s meeting, you can do so here.
If you’d like to submit testimony, you can do so at least through the end of Monday by following the instructions on this page.
If you want to see the public input that was received for Friday’s meeting, you’ll find it here.
More specifically, if you’re curious about the specific policy proposals on coronavirus response that have come in so far, legislative staff (bless them!) have summarized them in a chart. But be advised, the summary is 41 pages long!
AND FINALLY,
Here again are some resources that you will find useful:
If the above links are not providing you with answers to your questions or directing you to the help that you need, please consider me and my office to be a resource. We’ll do our best to assist you or steer you in the right direction.
Best,
 Senator Michael Dembrow
District 23
email: Sen.MichaelDembrow@oregonlegislature.gov
web: www.senatordembrow.com
phone: 503-986-1723
mail: 900 Court St NE, S-407, Salem, OR, 97301
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