Articles Posted in State Government & Legal Resources

(Conferences (past and future) are as bad for blogging habits as are vacations, but I, and my readers, soldier on 🙂

This week, we’ve been getting quite a few Legislative History questions, from hither and yon, about new and old statutes. So, in the interest of those who would like a few hints on where to begin (and end), here are links to a few guides:

1) A quick and easy guide, from Oregon Dept of Admin Services (not pretty or well-formatted, but this guide does the trick without unnecessary bells and whistles).

One of my library patrons expressed some curiosity about the relative property tax rates of different Oregon counties (and cities). This was prompted by reading the “timber money” article in Sunday’s Oregonian, where a resident of Grants Pass/Josephine County was quoted as saying that local residents pay a property tax rate of $.58/$1,000 (see below for excerpts from the article).

And a few weeks ago, a speaker on Think Out Loud noted that the residents of his county paid nothing for the services of their sheriff’s department (it has been paid for out of the taxpayer-supported timber payments). (Compare this with my law library’s Washington County where the residents in the past two elections voted in special levies for Sheriff’s Department services.)

So, how does one compare the local taxes people across the state pay, including counties that want federal timber money, counties with Indian reservations, counties with prisons, with farmland, with desert, etc.?