SALEM — Oregon’s ambitious and costly plan to transform its public schools begins with one person. On Thursday, Aug. 1, the first employee — one of dozens — charged with putting the Student Success Act into action joins the state’s education department. Lawmakers voted in May to raise new tax[Read More…]

SALEM — Summertime — and the paving’s easy. The Oregon Department of Transportation is embarking on dozens of projects to fix up roads and other transportation infrastructure across the state this summer. Paving work tends to ramp up in the summer, because workers need certain temperatures and conditions to pave.[Read More…]

SALEM — Auditors say Oregon’s central administrative agency lacks basic controls to protect its information and systems from a cyber attack. That means the Department of Administrative Services’ information and systems are at risk for “unauthorized use, disclosure, or modification,” according to a report released Wednesday, July 3, by Secretary[Read More…]

 SALEM — About 645,000 people could have had their personal information pilfered after a January breach at the Oregon Department of Human Services. The agency said Tuesday that it is providing a year of credit monitoring and an insurance policy covering up to $1 million of money lost per[Read More…]

SALEM — Outside consultants are pushing dramatic, immediate changes to fix Oregon’s foster care system. The Department of Human Services has been unable to resolve problems in the long-troubled system charged with lifting thousands of Oregon kids out of abuse and neglect. Nearly two months ago, Gov. Kate Brown brought[Read More…]

Oregon’s new state librarian, Jennifer Patterson, among the stacks at the Salem institution. (Jaime Valdez/Portland Tribune) SALEM — Jennifer Patterson loves libraries. She always has, she says. Now, she’s Oregon’s state librarian — the person in charge of supporting every library in the state, as well as managing the State[Read More…]

SALEM — Oregon’s pipes, roads, bridges and other structures for moving around the state and to get power and water need significant work, civil engineers said Wednesday. Much of Oregon’s infrastructure is deteriorating with age, and the state must do more to prepare for a potentially major earthquake, according to[Read More…]

SALEM — Oregonians are in line for a big personal income tax credit, in the form of Oregon’s unique “kicker” rebate, when they file their taxes in 2020. That’s because the state has collected far more money over the past two years than was expected, state economists Mark McMullen and[Read More…]

NOTE: Published in a cooperative arrangement with The Lund Report. On a typical day, doctors rush through Kaiser’s emergency department toward sounding alarms, and ambulances whisk in people suffering heart attacks, strokes or severe pain. Medical technicians and nurses attend to patients as worried families hover close. The department is[Read More…]

SALEM — A new class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses the state of inadequately protecting Oregon’s foster children. Ten foster children, representing the roughly 8,000 children in the state’s care, want a federal court to fix longstanding issues at the Oregon Department of Human Services. The kids are represented by Disability[Read More…]