The Senate Committee on Public Safety held an informational hearing Monday on House Bill 5014, the Department of Justice’s primary budget bill for the 2025–27 biennium.

The presentation laid out the department’s spending mix, key budget pressures and the governor’s recommendations, including continuing the Legal Tools Replacement project, backing federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) shortfalls with state general fund, increasing in‑house litigation capacity to reduce outside counsel costs, and paying LTR debt service from the Protection and Education Account.

The Department of Administrative Services’ policy and budget analyst Stacey Chase provided the opening overview. Chase said the agency’s current service‑level budget for the 2025–27 biennium is presented across general fund, other funds and federal funds and that other funds — largely legal billings to client agencies — are the department’s primary revenue source. Chase noted the governor’s budget assumes a legal billing rate of $322 per hour for the biennium and that the governor’s package includes pay‑go for LTR debt service and funding to backfill a shortfall in VOCA grant revenue.

“Ongoing issues affecting DOJ include the Legal Tools Replacement project, wrongful conviction litigation, increasing caseloads requiring use of outside counsel, and Victims of Crime Act funding reductions,” Chase said during her overview.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield described the department as a large agency and explained priorities that informed the attorney general’s request. Rayfield said the department manages more than $900 million in total funds and more than 1,500 full‑time equivalent positions statewide. He highlighted three broad priorities: solidifying administrative and human resources capacity, expanding in‑house litigation to reduce reliance on outside counsel, and supporting public safety work including organized‑crime and Internet Crimes Against Children efforts.

“We're spending too much money on outside counsel. We really believe that we can save the state money by bringing more of this work in‑house,” Rayfield said. He also said the office has spent about $267,000 of attorney work time to defend federal funding streams and estimated the work protected roughly $1.6 billion in funding that was at risk in recent litigation or federal actions.

Chase and Rayfield both described how changes in bargaining costs and policy option packages affect the legal billing rate. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Edlund and other DOJ presenters outlined programmatic shares of the agency budget: Chase and Edlund said roughly 27% of expenditures are related to the Division of Child Support and that over 60% of department spending represents legal representation of the state in civil and criminal matters. They noted the governor’s budget uses a mix of general, other and federal funds and that the proposed general‑fund increases are intended to backfill VOCA reductions and to fund targeted initiatives such as a special prosecutor for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons.

The committee and DOJ staff discussed how client agencies pay for DOJ legal services, the merits of the hourly billing model versus assessment or subscription models, and the complexity of separating general‑fund and other funding that state agencies use to pay for DOJ representation.

Chase and Edlund said the legal rate for the current biennium is $275 per hour and that contractual obligations and statewide bargaining increases have driven most of the proposed rate increase. They explained some policy option packages — for example, adding attorneys in the trial division — could lower the hourly rate by spreading billable time over more capacity.

The hearing concluded with committee members asking clarifying questions about funding sources, split of funds by program, and the potential for different client‑funding models. No formal vote on the bill occurred during the informational hearing.

Looking ahead, committee members signaled interest in more detailed budget notes and follow‑up briefings on specific DOJ programs in subsequent days of the informational hearings.