Oregon Gov.-elect Tina Kotek told business leaders at an annual summit in Portland on Monday that she will prioritize rebuilding trust, increasing accountability in state government and boosting partnerships between various government entities and the private sector when she takes office in January.

Kotek also promised to deliver results on three “issues of shared concern” across the state: housing and homelessness, mental health and addiction services and schools.

“We must improve the experience of Oregonians who are counting on us to deliver services every day,” Kotek said. “Accountability in government is one of the primary reasons I ran for governor.”

Too often, state leaders have declared victory after passing new programs or funding, then failed to ensure the public ultimately received the services or benefits that were promised.

Kotek, a Democrat who served for more than a decade in the state House including nine years as speaker, laid out her high-level agenda during her keynote address at the Oregon Leadership Summit.

“The real victory doesn’t come until that working mom enrolls her child in an affordable child care program,” until an unhoused military veteran gets a home “and the student who’s been struggling to read knows the satisfaction of reading her first book,” Kotek said.

The governor-elect said she will push her administration to “reframe success” to prioritize results and she will deliver lists of expectations to state agencies after she takes office. Kotek said the expectations might be general at first but she will zero in on specific metrics.

One way Kotek wants to rebuild Oregonians’ trust in state government is by meeting regularly with officials who can collaborate to tackle the state’s biggest challenges, such as Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair-elect Jessica Vega Pederson, she said.

“Our entire state benefits when Portland is healthy and economically thriving,” Kotek said. Some Portland-area civic leaders have faulted Gov. Kate Brown for her hands-off approach as the state’s largest city struggled with rising gun violence, homelessness and other problems.

Kotek announced she will undertake a “One Oregon” listening tour to visit each of the state’s 36 counties during her first year in office, starting with Yamhill and Douglas counties before her Jan. 9 inauguration.

In the governor’s office, Kotek said she expects her staff will spend more time than her predecessor’s did working directly with state agency leaders with the goal of achieving “operational excellence.”

Kotek expects to issue more announcements this week about top hires in her administration. When reporters asked her in a briefing whether she might pick new directors for the employment and education departments, Kotek answered, “possibly, yes.”

The governor-elect offered few specifics on how she might try to boost students’ academic outcomes, but she did say she wants to focus on improving third-grade reading proficiency and possibly direct additional help to struggling fourth and fifth grade students in a recognition of the impacts of the pandemic. Students at all grade levels struggled academically and emotionally during the pandemic, and Oregon schools stayed closed for in-person instruction longer than nearly all other states; researchers have found that, in general, students whose schools returned to in-person instruction sooner sustained less learning loss during the pandemic.

Kotek said during her press availability that she is also interested in getting schools to provide more tutoring, a proven strategy that few Oregon schools are using despite having federal pandemic funds available to do so, and summer school.