The Oregon Legislature ended the 2023 session with a flurry of votes on Sunday – including about $320 million in capital construction bonds for state university projects.

But the list that was approved in the final hours by the House and Senate did not include any money for Oregon State University-Cascades’ proposed $60 million health and recreation center.

The Legislature concluded the 160-day session on Sunday was House Bill 5006A, which approved bonds for a variety of state projects.

The Legislature’s plan included $227 million in new projects at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University’s Corvallis campus, Portland State University and Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls.

The plan approved by the House and Senate did not include the $45 million in state bonds OSU-Cascades sought to pay for the 40,000-square-foot health and recreation center.

Kotek unaware of changes to her original request

At a Wednesday press conference, Gov. Tina Kotek said she was reviewing hundreds of bills that came to her desk in the final week following the end of a 42-day walkout by Senate Republicans to force revision of abortion, transgender medical treatment and gun control measures.

Asked about the capital construction bills, Kotek said she would look at all budget bills line-by-line. 

As for OSU-Cascades, Kotek did not seem to know the legislature’s status on the Bend campus.

“I’m not aware that OSU-Cascades did receive any money,” Kotek said. 

In did not under under HB 5006A.

Under OSU-Cascades long-range building plan, the 2023-25 budget was slated for a request to build the health center. It would be located along Rim Road on the 128-acre campus in west Bend.

The $45 million in state bonds requested would be supplement by student fees to pay for the remaining $15 million. of the $60 million project The university’s timeline envisioned opening the facility by the fall of 2027.

The OSU-Cascades recreation center would include classrooms, faculty offices, sports courts, a yoga/dance/aerobics facility, a recreational and instructional rock wall, changing and shower facilities and equipment storage.

The plan also calls for up to two multipurpose recreation fields.

OSU-Cascades was approved by the state in 2012 as a four-year university offering bachelor’s and graduate degrees.

Its campus opened in 2016 and now has 1,271 students enrolled, according to the university’s website. The campus is planned to grow to as many as 5,000 students as it builds out its master plan.

In an April 2022 proposal sent to state higher education officials, OSU-Cascades planners said the proposed health center could have major implications for attracting and retaining students. The funding request calls the center “one of the last standard college features missing from OSU-Cascades students’ experience.”

Kelly Sparks, OSU-Cascades’ associate vice president of finance and strategic planning, said in spring 2022 that the center would “allow us to become a true four-year campus.”

‘Other priorities’

The possibility that the Bend campus of Oregon State University wouldn’t be allocated any funds for its next phase of building the campus first came up in January, when Gov. Tina Kotek released her proposed 2023-25 budget.

Saying she wanted to fund other priorities, Kotek asked that the capital construction for universities be limited to $100 million for maintenance on all campuses.

At the time, OSU-Cascades said it hoped that the Legislature might consider the needs of the still growing campus it had backed a decade before.

“It’s a large and important piece of the campus,” Christine Coffin, the communications director for OSU-Cascades, said after Kotek’s budget was released.

Kotek’s across-the-board thumbs down on new building on university projects didn’t hold up once the Legislature began writing the final version of budgets.

When a revised state revenue forecast showed more money available than was thought at the beginning of the session, lawmakers opted to go beyond Kotek’s recommendation.

On June 20, the proposed capital construction budget was released by the Joint Ways & Means Committee.

In addition to the $100 million for repairs and maintenance requested by Kotek, the committee of House and Senate members voted to approve an additional $229 million in bonds for new university projects.

The University of Oregon in Eugene was allocated about $72.7 million for an overhaul of Friendly Hall. The Corvallis campus of Oregon State University was approved for just under $72 million for the Collaborative Innovation Complex at the Corvallis campus.

Portland State University was allocated $65 million for the Vernier Science Center and Gateway Art and Design Complex and an overhaul of the Smith Memorial Union. The Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls received just under $18 million for a Geothermal System Emergency Renovation.

Supplementary funding for the Vernier Center is included in another part of the capital budget.

With the Legislature racing to pass hundreds of bills prior to the constitutionally required adjournment on Sunday, the bonds were approved by votes of 43-8 in the House and 19-5 in the Senate.

Reps. Jason Kropf, D-Bend, Emerson Levy, D-Bend, and Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, whose districts include or are adjacent to OSU-Cascades, voted in favor of the bond package.

The bond authorizations now go to Gov. Tina Kotek, who can approve, veto or line-item veto specific spending.

The votes mean OSU-Cascades would go two years until the 2025-27 budget before it could be considered for bonds for the health center.

Ups and downs of OSU-Cascades funding

Since it was approved in 2012, OSU-Cascades has seen a funding roller coaster.

When she was House Speaker, Kotek had commented that there wasn’t consensus in the Legislature for the full vision of a major four-year university east of the Cascades.

Gov. Kate Brown both radically reduced funding proposals for the university from earlier capital construction project lists, but also approved midbudget-cycle bonds to help the campus catch up on its plans.

Legislation in 2021 to change the plans for OSU-Cascades to put it on a par with the second-tier regional universities such as Eastern Oregon, Southern Oregon and Western Oregon did not advance in the Legislature.

Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, a member of the Joint Ways & Means Committee said after the June 20 revision this session that the Higher Education Coordinating Committee’s recommendations rated OSU-Cascades low on its construction priority list.

With that in mind, Dembrow said legislators need to have a discussion in the future on whether changes in higher education preferences of prospective students and limits on state spending still supported the 2012 vision of OSU-Cascades.

OSU-Cascades said after Kotek released her budget plans that the health and recreation center would also help the school build on its health-related degree programs, including current degrees in counseling and kinesiology, and future degrees in fields such as nursing, occupational and speech therapy and audiology.

The center would also assist with the region’s growing health care employment needs in partnership the St. Charles Health System and Central Oregon Community College.

The health of students would also be enhanced, particularly students who might not be able to afford private gym memberships in Bend.

According to a study by ECONorthwest, by 2025 OSU-Cascades was projected to inject $196.8 million into the state economy, generating 2,083 jobs and $3.44 million additional annual state income taxes.