McMinnville Chamber Legislative Update 4.7.15

Greetings Members,
Don’t forget to put the weekly Legislative Update call in your calendar. Each Tuesday morning at 8:30 for roughly 30-45 minutes, lots of good information! http://cm.mcminnville.org/events/details/legislative-update-call-04-14-2015-5952
McMinnville Chamber Member Legislative Report – April 6, 2015
Here are a few bills that you may be interested in:
SB 565 – State tax credit for historic property rehabilitation. Senator Boquist sits on this committee as Co-Vice Chair. Please send any comments to his office at sen.brianboquist@state.or.us. The MDA is supporting this bill and looking for more letters of support. The Chamber encourages everyone to educate on this bill and make your voice heard! Update to date information can be found here: https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Measures/Overview/SB565
HB 2133 – This bill would delete the requirement that 70% from Room Tax (known in McMinnville as TLT) revenue dedicated to tourism. This bill does not seem to be a good idea, and not sure how much support it has. But thought we would bring it to your attention as we are well on our way to building our TLT and a Destination Marketing Organization in McMinnville. The bill would not make any changes to our current situation per se, but it would allow other areas to charge a Room Tax and use any amount of that tax for other issues instead of tourism promotion. More info here: https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Measures/Overview/HB2133
HB 2005/SB 454 – Mandatory Paid Sick Leave Bills. Most current information here:
HB 2005 https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Measures/Overview/HB2005.
SB 454 https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Measures/Overview/SB454
HB 3025 – Prohibit employers from background check information until a conditional job offer is made. https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Measures/Overview/HB3025
HB 2008 – Minimum Wage Increase.
McMinnville Chamber has just been informed that there will be an evening public hearing on all the minimum wage increase bills for the evening of Monday, April 13^th (next week).
Oregon Minimum Wage Hearings
(Joint Meeting of the House Business & Labor Committee and Senate Workforce Committee)
Oregon State Capitol
Monday, April 13
6:00pm – 8:00 pm
Attached are Oregon State Chamber Backgrounder on Minimum Wage issue and a testimony Template. These are provided by the Oregon State Chamber and sent to you as resources. 2015 OSCC Minimum Wage Backgrounder 040815 2015 OSCC Minimum Wage Testimony Template 040815
If you wish to attend no action needed but to show up.
If you wish to provide testimony in person that evening please email nknottingham@mcminnville.org so we can help facilitate that through Oregon State Chamber.
If you want to provide written testimony, please email Rep.jimweidner@state.or.us.

Key Items in the coming week (April 6 – 10):
April 10 (Friday) is the first major deadline of the 2015 session! All bills must be posted for a committee vote by midnight on Friday in order to survive for the session. This is typically where we see at least half of all legislation die. This whittles down the playing field significantly for potential legislation.
OSCC will issue a report to its members regarding which bills will not move any further this session. It’s our hope that a majority of the anti-business bills do not move forward, however, we caution that most of the bills OSCC opposes will at least get scheduled for a committee vote.
MACC Anticipates Getting Members Engaged in the Following Issues in April:

HB 2386 – the bill that gives BOLI the unchecked ability to issue cease and desist orders if the Labor Commissioner “has reason to believe” an employer has committed an unlawful employment practice – was defeated on the House floor. However, we anticipate that there will be an attempt to revive this bill. OSCC will alert you with an Action Alert and talking point if/when this occurs.
HB 3025 – the legislation that prohibits employers from conducting criminal background checks on job applicants until after a conditional job offer has been made – is anticipated to get a push before the April 10 deadline. OSCC will activate chambers with an Action Alert on this issue if/when it appears that it may pick up steam. It is unclear whether this bill has any legs or not at this time.
Both the paid sick leave bills – SB 454 and HB 2005 – will also be our focus this month due to the emerging cost impact of the bill. The Legislative Revenue Office has determined that the sick leave mandate will cost employers nearly $1 billion per biennium. This number far exceeds the impact of the Measure 66/67 tax increases. With the new official cost projections on paid sick leave coming out of the Legislative Revenue Office, we will want to make sure we are talking about the cost of paid sick leave. We have never had the benefit of quantifiable cost information on a new proposed regulation like this. This is very significant.

April 7 Conference Call with Jim Weidner and Jim Williams (Sen. Boquist office):

SB 129: Gain Share Tax. Move to cut back the county shares of this tax to go to the state coffers. https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Measures/Overview/SB129 Negotiations on where the money could go is now in play, lots of push back from the counties. Not as impactful to Yamhill as it is to Washington County. Could be good for business, not changing the tax but shifting the funds into education and other areas, but there will be a trade off from counties specifically.
Senate passed the K-12 Budget, but consider a lot more negotiations on the final budget in late June. House and Senate Republicans are looking deeply into the actual expenditures of the K-12 Budget to find more money for teachers in schools.
SB 937: https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Measures/Overview/SB937. Control the sale of Powdered Alcohol and put it under the Liquor Commission. This new product has come to market and has caught the state unaware.
Joint committee on Marijuana should have a report on what may change with Marijuana in business. Main goal to keep policies as an employer while still allowing the passage of this bill. OLCC gave an update and it is clear that this is a moving target and will be working out over time. Both sides of the isle on this issue are respectful and professional from all concerned (as noted by Rep. Weidner).

Another interesting link. AOI issues their “Job Killing” bill list: http://oregonbusinessreport.com/2015/04/aoi-issues-job-killing-bill-list/
If you have any questions or comments please reach out to me here at nknottingham@mcminnville.org.
Thank you to the Oregon State Chamber of Commerce for continuing to provide talking points and support for our chamber to provide this information to our members.