As Gov. Kate Brown gears up to work with legislative Democrats to craft billions of dollars in tax and fee increases, she’s brought on a new staffer specifically to work on that policy.

Christian Gaston, who was the spokesman for Brown’s 2018 re-election campaign, is taking on a new role as the governor’s revenue policy adviser. Both Gaston and Chris Pair, Brown’s communications director, worked for former Gov. John Kitzhaber at the end of his third term and beginning of his fourth term.

Gaston’s annual salary is $97,000, according to the governor’s office.

Brown will also vet tax policy ideas with a handful of businesses and Oregon’s powerful public employee unions, organized as the Coalition for the Common Good and the Common Good Fund political action committee. Nike, a founding member of the group, is paying for the respected economist and former legislative revenue officer Paul Warner to help the group develop proposals for tax policy.

Gaston started his career as a reporter and editor at the Forest Grove News Times, then worked approximately 18 months for The Oregonian/OregonLive as a Legislature and state politics reporter. Gaston left The Oregonian/OregonLive to work on policy research for Kitzhaber’s 2014 re-election campaign and briefly worked as a communications adviser for Kitzhaber’s administration until the Democrat resigned in February 2015.

Gaston studied English at Portland State University, according to a biography posted online during his time as Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury’s policy and research director. He took that job in 2015 after working for Kitzhaber.

In another recent change in the governor’s staff, Elana Pirtle-Guiney was promoted last month from labor and workforce policy adviser to legislative director. That job opened up when former legislative director Ivo Trummer went to work for the Port of Portland, as Willamette Week reported in July. In her new job, Pirtle-Guiney earns nearly $138,000 a year, according to the Department of Administrative Services.

Pirtle-Guiney, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Lewis and Clark College, previously worked for the Oregon AFL-CIO in a variety of roles including communications and lobbying the Legislature, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Brown intends to hire another workforce and labor adviser, Pair wrote in an email.

-- Hillary Borrud

hborrud@oregonian.com

503-294-4034; @hborrud