By and large, officials had not counted on funding and did not factor it into their budgeting; 15 ODOT positions cut in Jackson, Josephine counties
By Buffy Pollock, Rogue Valley Times
As layoffs were ordered July 7 for nearly 500 Oregon Department of Transportation workers, effective July 31 with a second round likely by early 2026, local government officials were taking stock of the impacts the loss of state transportation dollars would mean for Southern Oregon.
Gov. Tina Kotek, who called the recent failure of the transportation package a “preventable emergency” that created the largest round of layoffs in state government history, said during a media roundtable July 8 that she’s still hopeful to find a solution.
“I’ve already started communicating with various different constituencies about, ‘How do we solve this?’ And I’m not going to take my foot off the gas,” Kotek said. “Laying off hundreds of people from ODOT is bad for the state. It’s bad for basic services that people count on. And we do need to solve this.”
In addition to the nearly 500 layoffs, another almost 450 vacant positions were eliminated, resulting in the loss of more than 900 positions for the state’s transportation agency. Layoffs this week resulted in a direct impact to ODOT road maintenance crews, technical support staff and operations staff.
In Jackson County, 12 positions were cut, according to a list of layoffs provided by the state. These included a transportation maintenance coordinator, five transportation maintenance specialist 2 positions, an associate in engineering 1 post, an engineering manager 2 position, an engineering specialist 2 job, a heavy equipment 2 worker, an engineering manager 2 job, an engineering specialist 2 position, a heavy equipment specialist 2 post, an information specialist 5 job and an office specialist 2 position.
Josephine County lost three ODOT transportation maintenance 2 positions.
County officials keep staffing lean
Regionally, county and city officials said they had not counted on the funding that would have come from the failed transportation package despite a significant need for increased transportation funding.
Jackson County Roads and Parks Director Steve Lambert said the county, which maintains over 900 miles of roadway and 300-plus bridges, stood to receive an additional $10 million in transportation dollars under the proposed funding package.
Lambert said regional officials strongly opposed a last-minute “stop gap” measure by legislators that would have raised gas taxes and some DMV fees for revenue but would have been funneled directly to ODOT rather than between counties, cities and ODOT.
“For revenues to go only to ODOT, and not address the funding needs of local governments, was unacceptable and showed that some legislators, while trying to fix ODOT’s immediate funding issues, were willing to do so while disrespecting the efforts we put into our share of the transportation system,” Lambert said in his email to county staff.
“Either way, funding for our transportation needs … has to be fixed as the current model will not address our long-term funding needs. We need additional revenues. But those revenues cannot be dedicated to ODOT only and we will keep working to ensure that when a solution is drafted, we are part of it.”
In an interview with the Rogue Valley Times, Lambert said Jackson County was in a “much different position,” budget wise, than other government entities. County officials “took some pretty significant cuts about 20 years ago,” he noted, to keep staffing at sustainable levels.
“We’ve been holding pretty much the same number of FTEs for 15 to 20 years. … so there’s really not a lot more we can cut inside our roads department, as far as people go. We have to have the number of people we have for paving and snow removal,” he said this week.
Lambert said county roads crews would continue operations and maintenance efforts “largely as is” and that reduced funding would be realized via delays to capital projects, rather than staffing.
“At the end of the day, we can hold off or cut things that we’d like to have but maybe we don’t need right now. What we do need is to maintain our paved surfaces because, if we don’t, then they get behind and, in 5 to 10 years, it’ll end up costing taxpayers far more to fix something we could have maintained,” he said.
“Every dollar you spend on maintenance is $10 you would be spending on reconstructing and we don’t have the funding right now to be maintaining our infrastructure in a sustainable manner into the future. We need more funding for pavement and bridge maintenance to be the stewards of these essential public assets we are expected to be.”
Maintaining healthy reserves, he noted, enables the county to “make do” during times of state funding limitations. For example, county officials were able to utilize $1 million in reserve funding to replace Fredenburg Bridge in Butte Falls, which was destroyed by arson last year.
“When a (transportation) package needs to be passed and it doesn’t, because of the way we manage and the way that we budget, it’s not the end of the world,” he added.
“We’re not getting ready to fall off a cliff. We’re on kind of a glide path and we can provide some stability for our team members. … ODOT is saying, ‘We’re gonna lay off 1,000 people if we don’t get this funding.’ We’re not saying that.”
Lambert said projects such portions of the Foothill Road Corridor Project, which began in 2023, being completed in collaboration with the city of Medford, and plans to widen Wilson Road — between Table Rock and Upon Roads — would see delays in addition to some other capital improvements
“We get about $20 million in state highway funds right now. A 50% increase would have been a pretty important increase — it would have been a game-changer for us,” Lambert added.
“But it didn’t happen so we’ll keep working with the powers that be.”
Medford officials didn’t budget for added funds
For the city of Medford, outgoing Public Works Director John Vial said the city of Medford hadn’t budgeted for funds that would have come from the failed transportation package either.
“For the city, the position that we were in is we did not budget for that money,” Vial said.
“If this package passed, that was going to be additional revenue that we were going to be able to do additional things with, but we’re not making any cuts because we didn’t get the money.”
Vial said the city stood to gain a doubling of existing gas taxes.
“Today, we get about $7 million a year in gas tax. By 2029, that would go up to about $14 million, so it would have represented a substantial increase to our street fund,” Vial said, noting that city officials would have “put a big chunk” of any increase into pavement maintenance.
“We have been really struggling to keep our pavement condition good. We’re falling behind and we will continue to fall behind until some additional revenue is raised,” Vial said, noting that one project that could have been completed with the added funding was the planned upgrading of Table Rock Road, between Merriman Drive and Interstate 5, to three lanes with curb gutter and sidewalk.
Vial said he was hopeful to see funding solutions regionally and nationally for transportation infrastructure.
“Transportation funding across the nation is at a critical point and, unless we do something to address it, citizens are going to see road conditions — whether at the city, county or state level — continue to deteriorate,” Vial said.
“We were excited to see a funding package because of the potential to address street conditions. … If this passed, we were going to make our pavements better. That was the first and number one priority. Without it, we are going to see some further deterioration of our pavement condition. … Like I said, ‘We’re going to live without it, but it would’ve made a big difference if we’d got it.’”
Vial added, “We’re all at a critical juncture and we’ve kind of been at the edge of a cliff for transportation funding — locally and state and nationwide — for quite a while now.”
Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.
