Prison and Jail Reform - Building new jails and prisons that are designed so every inmate has a separate cell with kitchen and bathroom amenities will decrease security and kitchen staff. Estimated savings are between $250-500 million a year.
Increasing Class Sizes - The current teacher to student ratio for classes is around 1 to 20 in Oregon for K-12. If classrooms at the high school and middle school level were doubled in size, teaching staff could be cut in half. Construction would have to be done to connect classrooms together to increase their size. The current yearly budget for teachers is around $3 billion. Increasing class sizes for high school and middle school could potentially save around $700 million a year.
Pay - Will analyze the pay of public employees per hour relative to their private counterparts. Will also analyze benefits. Will ensure public employees are not being overcompensated.
Cutting Mental Health Services - Mental health clinics are often extremely expensive costing $2,000 per day per resident on average, and also force people on drugs.1 Currently, around $330 million is being spent on various mental health services, most of which are scams and ineffective.2
Regulating Health Care Employees' Pay - Currently, the Oregon government plans on spending around $40 billion3 on health care for the years 2025-2027, if salaries and drug prices were decreased by 5% for example, this could lead to 1 billion dollars of savings per year for the government, as well as 1 billion in the private. Healthcare costs in the U.S. are around twice as high in other countries with salaries and drug prices being the primary reason.4 Cuts can be focused on non-surgical staff, and non-emergency medical staff.
Budget Oversight - Each state agency will have two senators/representatives that directly oversee the budget. Their duties will be mainly to look for budget cuts. They will interview employees at the agencies, as well as people in the private who deal with the agencies, in order to find improvements. If other states have similar agencies and are being run more efficiently, their budgets can be analyzed to find improvements.
Transparency - Will work on creating a more detailed budget that is transparent to the public. Will work on creating a more detailed budget of the sources of revenue.
Cutting Fees on Farmers - Annual facility licenses, farmland application fees, pesticide fees, fertilizer fees. Oregon department of agriculture currently has a 2 year budget of around 150 million. I should be able to cover this with other budget cuts.
No tolls - Tolls will be eliminated on bridge of gods, white salmon/hood river bridge and covered from other sources. Tolls for i-5 replacement will be frozen, as well as i-5 project. Hood River bridge will most likely still be renovated using funds from other sources.
DMV Cuts - Eliminating DMV registration fees, DEQ inspections. Will look for better ways to create the funds that doesn't require paperwork.
1 Retrieved from https://amfmtreatment.com/cost/residential/#:~:text=If%20you%20don't%20have, a%20typical%2030%2Dday%20program
2 Retrieved from https://www.orcities.org/resources/communications/bulletin/governor-biennial-budget-fy-25-27
3 Retrieved from https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.us/DHSForms/Served/le-1308700.pdf#:~:text=Grounded%20in%20equity%2C%20access%2C%20and%20accountability%2C%20OHA,(LAB)%20totals%20$41.9%20billion%2C%20supporting%205%2C997%20positions.
4 Retrieved from https://www.theprinceofpeace.net/home/federal-policy/healthcare