Making A Contract Killing

As the Legislature prepares to cut higher education and other budgets by as much as 30 percent, a key lawmaker is raising questions about a lucrative lobbying contract between the Oregon University System and a Bend lawyer.

Since January 2004, records show that contract has earned Neil Bryant, formerly a Republican state senator from Bend, $698,000—or nearly $140,000 a year from the state's seven public universities.

"We've called this contract into question," says Sen. Margaret Carter, a Portland Democrat who's joint chair of the budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee. "In these fiscal times, we have to rein in that kind of spending."

In addition to paying him big bucks, Bryant's contract is unusual in other respects. First, few state agencies employ contract lobbyists on an hourly basis­—­now $195 an hour. "If we're going to hire a lawyer on an hourly basis, the rate state agencies pay the AG's office ($126 per hour) should be the high-water mark," Carter says. (And PSU, OSU and UO already employ their own full-time lobbying staff.) Two agencies most often in front of the Legislature—the Department of Human Services, the state's largest agency, and the Department of Transportation—send staffers to the Capitol when necessary.

Four DHS employees are registered to lobby this session. But spokeswoman Patty Wentz says each performs other duties for the agency as well.

In 2003, the SAIF Corp., the state-owned workers' compensation insurer, attracted legislative scrutiny for paying former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt more than $1 million between 1996 and 2003 to lobby. Goldschmidt's contract earned his firm $20,000 a month until outraged lawmakers, led by Sen. Vicki Walker (D-Eugene), forced SAIF to slash such expenditures. SAIF external affairs director Chris Davie says the agency now has a contract with powerful Salem lobbyist Mark Nelson at a more modest $5,250 per month.

That's good money, but only about half the $11,000-plus a month the OUS pays Bryant, whose contract began during the period Goldschmidt served on the higher-ed board in 2004.

A second unusual feature of Bryant's contract is that he gets paid by the hour and gets reimbursement for his travel from Bend at state employee rates. In a nod to hard times, OUS reduced his hourly rate March 1 from $215 per hour to $195.

Bryant says his compensation is less than his law clients pay him and less than what it would cost the university system to hire a full-time staffer with his background. OUS spokeswoman Diane Saunders says Chancellor George Pernsteiner and the higher-ed board are very pleased with Bryant. "We get a lot from him," she says. "And Oregonians get a lot from him."

In 2005, Gov. Ted Kulongoski appointed Bryant to the OHSU board, but Bryant withdrew his nomination after

reported that he listed "white/male" in a section on his application asking if he had a disability.

WWeek 2015