April 18, 2008

To: All DHS employees

From: Bruce Goldberg, M.D., director

“The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.”

~William James

Next week we begin our visits to communities throughout Oregon to gather public input on our draft budget priorities for 2009-2011. Up first are Eugene on Wednesday and Medford on Thursday. In all, we will be hosting meetings in 13 cities and towns during April and May.

These local forums play an essential role in developing a budget that reflects the priorities and desires of Oregonians for services from DHS. We also learn a lot by having the opportunity to visit with people throughout the state and hear about their needs and concerns. It’s a good reminder of the very real impact our services have on people’s lives.

During the past year we have held numerous discussions with many partners, clients and advocate groups to gather detailed information about their priorities for DHS. We have compiled those comments into a high-level summary, and it is that summary we will be presenting at the community forums.

Our goal is to help inform communities about the work we do and how the funds we receive are used. After that we will ask participants for their thoughts about, and reactions to, the budget ideas compiled so far, and we will use that information to further refine the budget request we eventually will present to the Governor later this year.

Once our Agency Request Budget (ARB) is reviewed and modified by Governor Kulongoski, he will present the 2009 Legislature with the Governor’s Request Budget (GRB), which he does for all state agencies. The details of that budget will be considered during a series of legislative hearings. The final 2009-2011 DHS budget that emerges from the Legislature is called the Legislatively Adopted Budget (LAB). When you begin hearing terms like ARB, GRB and LAB, you’ll know the process is under way.

One of the most important things to me about this process is its inclusivity. I believe it is important to work with our partners, clients and the public we serve if we are going to develop the programs and priorities that best meet the needs of Oregonians. That’s why I’m looking forward to the next several weeks. I want to hear directly from the people we serve and learn what we’re doing well and where we can do better.

You can follow the budget development process and see the complete schedule of forums at http://oregon.gov/DHS/aboutdhs/budget/09-11budget/index.shtml. I encourage you to check that site every few weeks for updated information. If you have comments about the budget, you can send your thoughts to me at dhs.budget-input@state.or.us. I look forward to hearing from you.

And my thanks to those of you who sent all the positive feedback about last week’s message and my first foray into “designer” e-mail messages. I’m still trying to perfect this new medium, though the truth is we forgot the camera this week. So today I’ve included a photo from my visit to the Public Health Division a couple of weeks ago, when I had the pleasure of presenting the Director’s Excellence Awards to the members of PHD’s Spanish Language Accuracy Team for their efforts to ensure culturally appropriate translations of critical news releases. I’ll be including photos from the upcoming community forums in the next several messages.