McMinnville Area Chamber of Commerce Legislative Update – April 20, 2017
On Tuesday, the legislature had a deadline to move bills out of committee. With the thousands of bills being considered, it was a monumental task and, as you can imagine, many bills did not make it out of committee and died. Tax and budget bills do not fall under the deadline and therefore any bills in the Ways and Means and Revenue Committees would still be under consideration.
Employment/Labor:
HB3087 – Paid Family Leave passed through the House Committee on Early Childhood and Family Supports and was referred to the House Committee on Revenue. HB 3087 Paid Family Leave – “creates family and medical leave insurance program”. The bill would impose a new tax (o.5%) on employers and employees to pay for the required 12 weeks of leave. It is scheduled for a vote on Tuesday.
SB828 and HB2193 Predictive Scheduling – Both have amendments targeting hotels, restaurants and retail. It passed Senate Committee on Workforce on April 17th, 4 aye votes to 1 nay.
HB 2005 Pay equity – makes unlawful employment practice to discriminate in wages against employee in a protected class. Laws already exist that protect pay equity and this bill would open the door to unnecessary litigation.
SB 984 Daily/Weekly overtime fix – Overtime pay for manufacturing employees to be calculated for weekly and daily and to pay the greater of two amounts. This would roll BOLI’s interpretation of overtime to historic methodology. The bill passed the Senate Committee on Workforce. If this passes it will be encouraging news for employers in manufacturing.
SB329 – relating to preemption of local governmental authority to regulate work schedule requirements and employment law mandates. The State of Oregon preempts all charter and statutory authority of local governments to enact a requirement relating to work schedules.
SB301 – Preventing employer from enforcing zero tolerance drug policies. This passed the Senate Committee on Judiciary with amendments. You can find the amendments here: https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2017R1/Downloads/ProposedAmendment/11063
SB292 – Workplace bullying is in the Senate Judiciary and scheduled for a vote on Tuesday.
SB1040 – Ensures local collective bargaining security agreements and prevent local right to work measures. An employer or labor organization anywhere in the State may execute and apply an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment.
SB997 – Establishes penalty on employers that offer health insurance coverage to employees that has employees working at least 20 hours per week who receive health care coverage through medical assistance program. This would apply to employers with over 50 employees.
Real Estate Bill
HB2006 – disallows Mortgage interest deduction for resident’s other than taxpayer’s primary residence. This is in House Committee on Human Services and Housing. A public hearing was held on March 9.
HB3079 – Hospital Provider tax: This bill would impose a huge tax bill on hospitals. It is in the House Committee on Health Care.
Business Tax:
HB2019 – Corporate tax disclosure: This bill would require the Oregon Department of Revenue to report to the Legislative Revenue Officer (LRO) information from Oregon Tax Returns about certain corporations doing business in Oregon. A work session is scheduled for April 20th. There are proposed amendments that state a tax payer that claims at least $500 in business tax credits would submit to the Secretary of State a statement of information of details from their tax return.
You may have seen this ad on tv lately. Priority Oregon created the ad to counter the Gross Receipts Tax the legislature is proposing to bridge the expected $1.6B budget shortfall. You can see the ad here: http://itsreallyjustasalestax.com/.
SB164 and SB165 – Relating to the election of reduced rate of taxation for certain pass-through non-passive income on original or amended tax return. And SB165 – relating to employment requirements for elective reduced rate of taxation on pass-through income.
SB487 is now SB737 – Damage awards: the bill would eliminate the $500k cap on non-economic damages in civil lawsuits. It passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Cap and Trade:
SB557 – This bill did not pass the Senate Committee on Business and Transportation.
HB2135 – Repeals greenhouse gas emissions goals and requires Environmental Quality Commission to adopt rule statewide greenhouse gas emissions goals for 2025 and limits for years 2015 and 2050. Passed the House Committee on Energy and Environment on April 17th, 5 ayes, 4 nays.
Tourism Bills: Neither of these bills moved forward in the House.
HB 2744 – amends the definition of tourism related facility and authorize costs of maintenance of tourism related facilities.
HB 2768 – expands definition of tourism promotion for purposes of transient lodging tax revenue expenditures.
Other bills impacting business:
HB2269 – Would modify fee schedule for sources subject to federal operating permit under Title V of the Federal Clean Air Act to include specific activity fee to fund investigation of complaints related to sources subject to federal operating permit program. It passed Energy and Environment (5 ayes and 4 nays) and was referred to Ways and Means Committee.
HB2236 – Requires Dept of Environmental Quality to conduct study and develop recommendations related to emissions of air contaminants from industrial sources. Passed the House Committee on Energy and Environment unanimously and was referred to House Ways and Means.
SB197 – The Environmental Quality Commission would adopt a rule program for regulating air contaminant emissions from dairy confined feeding operations. It is in the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.
We provide this update to you as part of our commitment to educate and activate members regarding public policy. Should you have any questions or need additional information, please do call me at 503-472-6196 or email at president@mcminnville.org.
Thank you for being a McMinnville Chamber member.
Gioia Goodrum
President/CEO
Content of bill information is taken from the Oregon Legislative Information System. For more information about bills and their status, visit www.olis.leg.state.or.us.
