SALEM — The Oregon Legislature’s most recent special session provided some clarity for Eastern Oregon projects waiting on lottery dollars that have dried up during the pandemic.

Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, said the Port of Morrow’s Early Learning Center expansion was reapproved for funding, while Blue Mountain Community College’s Farm II project and the Umatilla County Jail renovation were not.

“BMCC’s equestrian center, unfortunately, we were not able to keep funded,” he said.

During the 2019 legislative session, all three projects were approved to receive funding from the state through the sale of bonds. In order to sell the bonds, however, the state must show a 4-to-1 ratio between forecast Lottery Fund revenue and the amount of debt in the bonds. After restaurant and bar closures sent video poker revenues plummeting this year, the state called off the sale of the bonds, which represented $273 million in capital projects around the state.

During its Monday, Aug. 10, special session, Smith said, the Legislature found other sources of funding for some of those projects, including the $1.4 million expansion of the Port of Morrow’s Early Learning Center, which will provide additional space for Head Start.

BMCC’s Farm II project, which would create an indoor rodeo arena and agricultural classroom space in Pendleton, did not get funding. Smith said while half the funding for the project would have come from the lottery bonds, the other half would come from a different sort of bond debt that required a dollar for dollar match from BMCC.

He said since BMCC has faced some “financial restructuring” and layoffs recently due to the pandemic and other factors, the Legislature felt it would be better to prioritize some of the other lottery bond projects first.

“It’s not eliminated, but we took it off the front burner and put it on the back burner, and the next biennium we can see where it is,” Smith said.

The planned renovation of the Umatilla County Jail to better handle mental health cases did not walk away from the special session with its funding restored either. Smith said if lottery revenue increases to an adequate level by the end of the 2019-21 biennium the project may still get funding; if not, they will have to request it again during the next biennium.

Smith has lobbied for the capital projects in Pendleton, even though they are outside District 57, because they benefit many of his constituents to the west, but said that with both Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, and Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove, absent from the past two special sessions, Pendleton has had “no one in the building.”

He said Hansell has been good about checking in with him, however, and stayed involved from afar as health issues have kept him home.

He said other funding wins for Eastern Oregon included additional funding for rural hospitals, a significantly smaller reduction in funding for OSU experiment stations than previously proposed, preserving funding for 4-H and FFA programs and keeping K-12 education funding intact.

Maintaining funding for education despite the corporate activity tax coming in much lower than expected meant drawing $400 million from the state’s rainy day Education Stability Fund. Smith said he believes the state is now in a good position to maintain a balanced budget through the rest of the biennium, but they will need to continue to look for ways to cut costs.

“All indications from the state economist is that the rain has started, but the storm is coming … But if we handle it correctly, there are still sunny days ahead,” he said.