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Oregon Rep. Greg Smith gave himself unapproved $66,000 raise and approved his own $51,000 in vacation pay, ethics panel found

Oregon's Government Ethics Commission unanimously found on December 12, 2025 that state Rep. Greg Smith, executive director of the Columbia Development Authority of Boardman, used a 2024 federal grant application to secure himself a $66,000 raise on his $129,000 salary without his board's approval, then signed his own timecards and approved his own paid time off -- including more than 54 vacation days between December 2024 and August 2025 -- worth more than $51,000 over three years. Smith signed a consent order on July 16, 2026 agreeing to pay a $12,000 civil penalty without admitting intentional wrongdoing, and has not repaid the roughly $33,000 in retroactive pay his board ordered returned after discovering the raise.

Jurisdiction
Oregon
Location
Boardman, Oregon

Abuses documented

Actors

  • Greg Smith (Oregon State Representative; Executive Director, Columbia Development Authority of Boardman)

On December 12, 2025, Oregon's Government Ethics Commission unanimously found that state Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, violated state ethics law by using his position as executive director of the Columbia Development Authority of Boardman to secure himself a pay increase. The commission's investigation found Smith sent the CDA board chair a letter in December 2023 seeking to raise his $129,000 salary to $238,000, but the board never voted on an increase. A 2024 federal grant application the authority submitted to the Department of Defense's Office of Local Defense and Community Cooperation nonetheless referenced "a significant board-approved increase" beginning April 1, 2024, and set Smith's salary at $195,000 -- the maximum allowed under the grant's cap. After the CDA board discovered the increase, it revoked it and ordered Smith to repay the money; he has retained roughly $33,000 of the retroactive pay and has not returned it.

The same investigation found that, with no written CDA policy governing vacation accrual, Smith signed his own timecards and approved his own paid time off, taking more than 54 vacation days between December 2024 and August 2025 worth $26,248 -- part of more than $51,000 in vacation time he approved for himself over three years. The Columbia Development Authority is a publicly funded intergovernmental body -- including the Port of Umatilla, Umatilla County, Port of Morrow, Morrow County and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation -- created to redevelop a former military chemical depot near Boardman. Smith is a member of House Republican leadership and sits on the legislature's budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee.

Updates

2026-07-16 — Smith signed consent order, agreed to pay $12,000 penalty [2]

Smith signed a consent order agreeing to pay a $12,000 civil penalty covering both the unapproved raise and the vacation-time violations, waiving his right to a contested hearing and without admitting intentional wrongdoing. The ethics commission was scheduled to vote on formally accepting the order at its August 14, 2026 meeting.

Why we recorded this

Public office is held in trust, not run as a personal revenue stream. Oregon's ethics commission found that state Rep. Greg Smith used his position as director of a public development authority to secure himself an unapproved $66,000 raise, then signed his own timecards and approved more than $51,000 in vacation pay for himself over three years. He later settled the resulting penalty without admitting intentional wrongdoing and has not repaid the money his board ordered returned. This archive records self-dealing by public officials because unchecked control over one's own pay and hours removes the independent oversight public compensation depends on.

Sources

  1. Oregon ethics commission finds Rep. Greg Smith violated state ethics laws in pursuit of raise — Oregon Capital Chronicle primary accessed August 8, 2026
  2. Eastern Oregon state Rep. Greg Smith will pay $12K to settle latest ethics violations — Oregon Capital Chronicle primary accessed August 8, 2026

See also