County Mayor of Innlandet
Breen was the Labour Party's nominee for county mayor in the 2023 local elections. He became county mayor of Innlandet following the election in a coalition consisting of the Labour,Conservative and Green Party,with the Conservatives' Hanne Velure as deputy county mayor. [2] In December 2025,he announced that he wouldn't seek re-election at the 2027 local elections. [3]
During his term,he was notably criticised in August 2024 for the county establishing a health group that would evaluate which students with mental illnesses could be qualified for taxi rides to schools. Breen defended the decision,arguing that the purpose of the group is to find the right tools to help with the issue. [4]
Breen and his coalition faced criticism and mass protests in October 2024 when they announced the county council's decision to close down several upper secondary schools and their school places around Innlandet. [5] Justice Minister Emilie Mehl caused controversy when she described Breen as "prostituting himself to the Conservative Party" in order to issue the closure,which both Breen and his deputy condemned and called on Mehl to focus on her duties as minister. [6] Mayor of Lom Municipality Kristian Frisvold stated that "this is war" in a municipal council meeting and encouraged people to dig up dirt on Breen and other county politicians. Breen called his comments "undemocratic" and distanced himself from Frisvold's rhetoric. [7] Despite all the opposition to the closures,a majority in the Innlandet county council approved the school closures on 23 October. [8] By December,he further suggested that more closures would be necessary in the coming years in order to keep pace with declining population numbers. He further suggested that Mehl should resign and retake her parliamentary duties after she visited one of the affected schools,if she wanted to focus on local issues outside of her ministerial duties. [9]
In June 2025,the county legislature voted 29–28 against providing public funds to the establishment of private-run upper secondary schools in Lom and Flisa. After several members resigned from the former local Labour chapter,Breen dismissed accusations of utilising the party whip to ensure enough support against public funding after a legislative deputy member was dismissed and replaced. The member,Bjørn Olav Aukrust,had supported public funding of the private upper secondary schools and could have tilted the majority in favour of funding had he not been dismissed. [10]
In September 2025,it was revealed that the county director Tron O. Bamrud,had given Breen advance payment of remuneration three times with a total sum of 150 000 NOK. The chief of staff Hjalmar Nørstebø-Solbjør notified about the issue and expressed that the director can't approve such payments to elected officials,which is also in violation of county guidelines. Other counties around the country have stated that they don't issue similar payments at all. Ernst &Young was tasked with investigating the issue and have preliminarily determined that the county guidelines were possibly breached and encouraged that the matter be looked into further. [11]
