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COUNTY CHAIR REVERSES COURSE ON SCHOOL-BASED MENTAL HEALTH: A proposal in Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson’s budget to eliminate the equivalent of 4.18 full-time school-based mental health providers inspired a mutiny among the other four county commissioners and a wave of outrage from community members (“Mental Distress,” WW, May 14). Now, Vega Pederson is changing course and on board with preserving the positions she tried to chop. An amendment by Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards, which Vega Pederson co-sponsored, proposes saving those four positions with $696,313. That money will be raised from about $250,000 in revenue generated by the school-based mental health program, which Brim-Edwards says would come from Medicaid. Another $446,313 would come from reducing one new position and contracted services from a permanent sobering and crisis stabilization center “that are not anticipated to be needed this fiscal year,” Brim-Edwards says, because a temporary site is expected to be in operation instead. School-based mental health operates in six school districts in the county. Therapists work at schools with students who have diagnosable mental health conditions; they also conduct suicide risk screenings and engage in crisis management. In a statement to WW, Vega Pederson says she’s “proud” to co-sponsor the amendment to further restore clinical services, especially after community members pushed for it. But she reemphasized her desire for the program to become more fiscally sustainable. “While we seek support from our board to fund these services,” she said, “we must continue our conversations with our partners in this work and use this next year to uncover ways to increase business rigor so that this program is more self-sustaining in times of financial uncertainty while also keeping services available to as many children as possible.”
NOVICK APOLOGIZES FOR PROPOSING ARTS CENTER CLOSURE: City Councilor Steve Novick had a rough go of it on May 21 as dozens of people publicly testified against his proposal to shut down the Multnomah Arts Center as a belt-tightening measure. After dozens of people (including a children’s string quartet) protested Novick’s idea, saying it would decimate a treasured community space and resource, Novick sent an email to constituents who had reached out in opposition. In a rare move for a public official, Novick apologized. “I want to let you know that I hear you. I will no longer be considering the amendment,” Novick wrote. He said he had been thinking about trying to get ahead of the growing maintenance backlog at Portland Parks & Recreation by closing its most rapidly deteriorating facilities. “What I, unforgivably, was not thinking about was the impact on the supporters and users of the centers.…I should have realized that I would be causing great anxiety and grief.” Novick added that he “displayed a spectacular lack of emotional intelligence.” He told WW over the weekend that he had heard from many constituents and was “overwhelmed by their capacity for forgiveness.”
GROUPS SAY BILL TO IMPROVE EARLY LITERACY INITIATIVE MAY WIDEN DISPARITIES: Oregon Kids Read, an advocacy network calling for the state to improve how it supports young readers, warns that a bill this session intended to improve Oregon’s 2023 early literacy initiative may have unintended effects. The advocacy group partnered with Oregon’s American Civil Liberties Union and four other organizations to criticize House Bill 3040, warning that amendments to the bill don’t do enough to intervene in the schools most at need. In a May 27 letter to the leaders of the Legislature’s Joint Ways and Means Committee and its Subcommittee on Education, the groups write that the bill must prioritize schools with the lowest rates of proficiency in reading and ensure tracking of how spending influences student outcomes. To target the 42 schools these groups term “most neglected” (lowest in third to fifth grade reading proficiency since 2018), they propose allocating $17 million to both teacher training and high-impact tutoring. They write that the Oregon Department of Education must rethink how it currently prioritizes schools for funding; right now, the state allows money to be prioritized to any school that has literacy proficiency rates that have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Literacy advocates say the provision applies to the vast majority of schools statewide and prevents schools that have been failing the longest—which typically have larger shares of low-income students and students of color—from getting the resources they need. As it stands, HB 3040 makes no direct commitment to some of Oregon’s worst-performing schools. As the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported in April, Gov. Tina Kotek is asking the Legislature for $100 million more in grant funding for the early literacy initiative, on top of the $90 million it received in 2023. Advocacy groups warn that the money could be spent for naught if it’s not targeted. “Families are calling on Ways and Means to use its funding oversight to prioritize students and schools that struggle the most with reading achievement,” Angela Uherbelau, founder of Oregon Kids Read, said in a statement.
LAWSUIT FILED IN MEMORY CARE DEATH: The estate of Celia Leonore Hess, who died after being left out in the sun at a Bend memory care facility on a blazing hot day last August, has filed a wrongful death suit against the facility and its then-manager, Dallas-based Frontier Senior Living. The Kafoury & McDougal firm filed the lawsuit in Multnomah County Circuit Court on May 27 on behalf of Hess’ personal representative, Melisa Finch (one of Hess’ two daughters). Hess entered the Aspen Ridge Retirement Community in April 2022, suffering from dementia. As WW first reported, staff found Hess on the morning of Aug. 30, 2024, sitting outside in the sun, heavily dressed. Caregivers determined she’d been sitting there for hours. She was nonresponsive and suffering cardiac arrest, according to the lawsuit, so caregivers called an ambulance. Ambulance personnel recorded her temperature as 105 degrees before transporting Hess to a local hospital, where she died Sept. 1. A subsequent investigation conducted by the Oregon Department of Human Services reported Hess died of hyperthermia. She was 76. DHS determined Frontier’s failure to staff the facility sufficiently placed current and potential new residents “at risk for immediate jeopardy” and prohibited Frontier from accepting new residents until it could prove it had remedied that and other problems. DHS inspection records show the facility previously ran afoul of state safety standards in 2016. The department investigated two incidents then—one, a fall that resulted in death—and found the facility dangerously understaffed. After finding eight violations of state rules, the agency restricted the facility from admitting new patients until it corrected shortcomings. That’s the same penalty the agency handed down after Hess’ death. Frontier did not respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit seeks $17 million in damages.