Director's message

April 25, 2008

To: All DHS employees

From: Bruce Goldberg, M.D., director

“In every community there is work to be done. In every nation there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it.”
~Marianne Williamson 

This week we held the first two of our 13 community forums – Wednesday in Eugene and Thursday in Medford. In both cities we heard from partners, clients, policymakers and members of the general public who took the time to share their ideas about what should be in our 2009-2011 budget. 

This year we are approaching our budget development in a somewhat different manner.  We are creating a “needs-based budget” that looks at where we really need to get to as a state to ensure that people and communities are healthy and safe, and that we are meeting the needs of vulnerable Oregonians. Our goal in these forums is to get input for our budget development and to develop a common understanding of what the health and human service needs are in Oregon and what it will take to meet them. 

The meetings began with an overview of the DHS budget, including our proposed themes for the 2009-2011 biennium. The second part of each meeting offered participants the opportunity to join breakout groups to discuss services in more detail and have their comments recorded. Finally, the groups came back together to report on the highlights from the breakout sessions. Within a week of each meeting we will be posting all of the comments at http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/aboutdhs/budget/09-11budget/index.shtml.

Throughout both meetings and within the breakout sessions, similar themes emerged regardless of the program or topic. Oregon clearly needs to do more to meet the needs of vulnerable Oregonians. There was enormous support across the board for early intervention upfront so we don’t have to chase the problem later. Participants agreed that we need to integrate and simplify access to services, upgrade our data bases and interconnectivity, and simplify our forms and record-keeping requirements.  

It is impossible to overstate the value of these forums to me, to our division directors, and to all of us. In face-to-face discussions we heard about the needs in local communities, compliments about what we do to meet those needs, and suggestions for how things could be improved. Individuals attending the forums paid us the compliment of caring enough about the services we provide to spend time learning about our budget and focusing on ways we can do better.

There was a lot of discussion, but underlying everyone’s comments was the belief that the services we provide are needed and that there are many areas in which Oregon needs to do more to help all of us live healthy, independently and safely. Forum participants made it clear that we should do better, that we can do better, and that they would help advocate for the resources and tools we need to do that.

Most important to me, I think, was seeing the shared concerns and desires of so many people. Advocates, clients and providers understand that we are all in this together. And they understand the services we provide are too important to settle for less than the best. 

I’m looking forward to next week’s forum in Portland and the ones after that. The full schedule of forums is available at http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/aboutdhs/budget/09-11budget/index.shtml. I encourage everyone who cares about health and human services to attend these events. The best way to develop a needs-based budget is to hear directly from our clients, partners and providers. And that’s what these forums are intended to do.