16
East Oregon board deceived by Rep. Greg Smith’s illegal pay raise considers rehiring him • Oregon Capital Chronicle
(oregoncapitalchronicle.com)
The proposed contract for Smith, the longest serving member of the Oregon House who has long added onto his legislative salary with high-paying consulting contracts and side gigs, includes an annual fee of $294,000 a year to serve as executive director through 2028, significantly more than both the $129,000 he earned annually and the $195,000 he told a federal agency he would be paid under a since-revoked grant.
This is despite the Oregon Government Ethics Commission finding Dec. 12 that Smith violated state law by using his office for personal financial gain when he directed an employee in charge of the development authority’s finances to boost his pay in 2024, including retroactively, in a grant application to the defense department’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation.
Despite the grant application claiming the Columbia Development Authority’s board had approved a pay increase from $129,000 a year to $195,000 a year, the board hadn’t voted on it. After discovering the pay raise months later, the board reverted Smith to his former salary and ordered him to pay back the excess earnings he had secured without their agreement. Smith has still not paid back the more than $33,000 he owes, according to the state ethics commission.
Jesus fucking christ. This board wants to not only rehire him but also more than double his pay despite him embezzling money from them and refusing to pay it back. Additionally, the CDA's entire budget is $800k and they want to allocate 37% of that to just this one man?