Posted on 02/03/2004 11:35:38 AM PST by cogitator
Measure 30 backers brace for worst
As election draws nearer, mood is bleak among school advocates
PORTLAND — With the Measure 30 tax vote looming, school advocates in Oregon say they are steeling themselves for its failure.
If voters turn down the three-year, temporary increase in the income tax on Feb. 3, schools stand to automatically lose $285 million.
Polls for the measure have suggested it will fail, and pro-tax advocates don't have the money to gear up for a last-minute all-out TV media blitz that might make the difference, leaving school advocates resigned to at least another year of budget cuts.
"We are feeling that it is probably going to fail," said Nellie Franklin, whose son is a senior at Burns High School in southeastern Oregon. "I thought, maybe people will start realizing this is real, but they are still thinking, 'Oh they have the money ratholed away somewhere.' "
The mood is just the opposite, though, for Measure 30 opponents like Dan Ziegler, who has founded the Corvallis Coalition for Responsible School Funding, and says his local school district needs to reduce spending on teacher salaries and benefits before asking for more money from taxpayers.
Some school districts were prudent in budgeting by assuming schools will get only $4.8 billion from the state, not the $5.2 billion they will receive if the tax increase passes, said Richard Burke, executive director of the state Libertarian Party, which also opposes Measure 30.
Burke argues that districts that drafted budgets based on the higher number were "irresponsible. They are the ones that have the pressure on them."
If the measure does fail, Oregon schools will find themselves in familiar territory. Last winter, Oregon voters turned down a similar tax measure, Measure 28, forcing about half of the state's schools to shut down early and prompting teacher layoffs statewide.
Lawmakers spent the longest legislative session in state history wrangling over how to fix the state's budget problems, caused by a decline in income tax collections, and finally agreed on a three-year temporary income tax surcharge, to raise $800 million for schools, social services and public safety.
But most schools didn't breathe easy even then, figuring that the Legislature's bipartisan decision would be referred to the ballot, and ultimately decided on by Oregon's perenially anti-tax voters.
That scenario came true, and now some school advocates find themselves struggling to stay optimistic in the last days before the votes are counted.
"I think there is a sliver of hope," said Mike Moran, the chairman of the Medford school board. "There has been some pretty blunt education of voters this time around. I think that it could go the right way."
And if it doesn't, in Medford, the school district has contingency plans in place: high school counselors may go, as well as the elementary school music program, and 10 teaching positions from the high school, Moran said.
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And this is an interesting perspective on Measure 30 from an Oregon Republican legislator:
Measure 30: Immediate solutions needed
Opponents of Measure 30, the Legislature’s balanced-budget tax plan, have raised several arguments against it that need to be rebutted. In the interest of informed public discussion of the measure, I have addressed and responded to some of the common arguments and questions, below.
You don’t raise taxes in a recession. Taxes are a drag on the economy and a tax increase could affect our recovery from recession, agreed. But cutting essential services now would be worse. Services such as education, human services and public safety are vital to a healthy economy. And demand for these services has risen, even while our general fund revenue has fallen at a rate not seen since the Great Depression.
On balance, the potential long-term harm from cutting services would be greater than any short-term negative impact that might follow from Measure 30.
Why are schools, police and the Oregon Health Plan targeted for cuts if Measure 30 fails? We spend 95 percent of our general fund budget on education, public safety and human services. If Measure 30 fails and the state loses hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, the cuts will necessarily fall on those programs and services because that’s where we spend the money.
The sky didn’t fall when voters rejected Measure 28 last year. What’s different this time? When Measure 28 was defeated, there were serious consequences. Schools cut school days. Courts closed. Thousands of violations and crimes were delayed or not even prosecuted. Oregon Health Plan benefits were slashed. And things would have been even worse if the Legislature had not borrowed $450 million to avoid shutting down whole agencies and programs.
There will be no more borrowing if Measure 30 fails. There are no more easy answers. Cuts in critical services will have to be made, and the consequences will be real.
Why doesn’t the Legislature just cut spending? The legislature has cut spending. After revenue started to decline in 2001, the Legislature cut $1.112 billion from the approved budget. Per-student spending fell 7.1 percent during 2002. The approved budget for 2003-05 is 5 percent less than the approved budget for 2001-03.
We don’t need a tax increase; we need to reform government. We need both. The 2003 Legislature made some major reforms. We reformed PERS, reducing the unfunded liability by $8 billion and cutting employer contributions. We ended “continuing service level” budgeting. We moved to streamline the regulatory process. We should always be reinventing government to provide better services at the lowest cost to taxpayers. Opponents of Measure 30 have offered some worthwhile suggestions for further reforms. But we have an immediate budget shortfall that won’t be fixed by long-term reforms. Only Measure 30 will provide revenue in this biennium to address our needs now.
Measure 30 presents voters with stark choices and complex issues. There may be no good time to raise taxes. But there’s no worse time than now to cut the essential services we need to move Oregon forward. That’s why I’m supporting Measure 30 and urge Oregonians to do likewise.
Help them out! List the first five non-essential programs and the first five non-essential services that should be cut, and show the cost savings that accrue from these cuts over the next two years.
Why doesn't the Oregon state government threaten to lay off six-figure salaried bureaucrats instead of threatening to close or cut back programs that would hurt the children, the elderly, and the poor?
Help them out! List the first 10 six-figure salaried bureacrats that should be laid off, and their positions. Show the total cost savings that would accrue from these layoffs over the next two years.
Probably because nobody would care if non-essential state services were cut or if fat cat state bureaucrats lost their jobs.
Or maybe because a) there aren't that many non-essential state services, b) the savings are negligible, and c) the "fat cat" state bureaucrats aren't that numerous, and they might be doing an important job.
But people listen when legislators make their emotional pleas about protecting the children, the elderly, and the poor as they beg for more tax money to waste.
I'm with the governor of Oregon on this one.
"Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D), who supports the tax increase, said he is not inclined to call a budget-juggling special session but to let the cuts take effect: "I'm trying to get the public to believe that when the government says something in fact will happen that, in fact, it will happen."
That's a good attitude.
I agree 100%. I look forward to your substantive reply to post 21.
But the overloaded beaurocracies will be untouched, like the new Multnomah county librarian who was recently hired at TWICE the salary of the previous one! When the council member in charge of the hiring was asked why the librarian should be paid more than the governor of the state, she said "Well maybe the governor should be paid more, too!"
We're doomed if our public servants don't have any more of a sense of responsibility than that.
Where I live, many of the county school system superintendents seem way overpaid, too. (Salaries in the 180K -- 200K/year range). However, the reason that the school districts pay such high salaries is that there is a lot of competition for top "talent" -- if they don't pay them these high salaries, apparently the best superintendents can find places that will. In order to get this madness to stop, there would need to be a national consensus that such salaries are too high, and none of the rich districts (with rich parents that want their kids to go to top-rated schools so the kids can then go to Ivy League universities) would have to agree not to hire superintendents at outrageously high salaries.
Now, I don't know if the same can be said for county librarians, but I suspect that the competitive aspect also applies. And while it is convenient to point fingers at examples of overpaid government employees, how does their salary compare to the overall budget in libraries for books/computers/etc.? I suspect that it isn't that much. Maybe if the librarian was hired for 30K less, the libraries could buy 60 more computers. That would be good -- but what's the total computer budget in the county libraries?
And I ask you: if you do a good job at what you do, wouldn't you seek the best pay for that job?
It's kinda like the situation with baseball. Does anyone blame Alex Rodriguez for taking a salary that was offered to him?
Sounds like there is some pretty blunt education of legislators going on...kind of like what happened here in Alabama!
That's fine; some employees will quit, and due to the budget situation, the positions won't be filled. It will take longer for government services to get done.
Retire/layoff a portion of local, county, state school administrators. They will always be the first thing that comes to my mind...they go before one teacher (oh, and fire substandard teachers - break the union) (the education beaurocracy is out of it's mind)
How many can you cut (and how much do you save) before there is an impact on the effective management of the educational system? I don't know the answer to that. I suspect that the number of administrators required to effectively manage a county school system is more than 1. Good schools require good administrators, but I don't know how many they require. I do know that NCLB is requiring more supervision of school-by-school success.
Delay/cancel city/county/state building construction - they can stay in old buildings a few more years.
That's a separate budget category, not general fund. Same goes for transportation projects.
Remove any overlapping state/county/city legislation - how many people need to take their cut of the cash cow before it gets to the people in need (local taxes stay local, state stays in the state)
Very good idea, but long in implementation and slow to accrue savings. The Measure 30 plan was looking at the next two years.
Sell off official transportation (let the elected officials use their own vehicles and reimburse)
How much would that save?
Renegotiate or delay city/county/state contracts
The amount that would be saved would depend on the size of the contract.
If you don't think there is a 20-30% city/county/state "fat" factor that can be excised, then we will agree to disagree.
I don't "think"; I try to base my opinions on actual numbers. I don't have numbers that would indicate whether 20-30% is feasible or not. In the articles I posted, the Republican legislator indicated that substantial cuts had been made and he didn't sound optimistic about finding much room for more. He would probably have a much better perspective on that than I would.
Alabama is a great state!
Where does Alabama rank in per-capita spending on education? 50th. That means that if they could achieve 49th, they've improved!
See #28. I'm going to contact my state legislator and request that he send me very detailed information regarding where every single penny of Oregon taxpayer's money is being spent. My gut feeling is that he won't Fedex that information to me anytime soon.
See #28. I'm going to contact my state legislator and request that he send me very detailed information regarding where every single penny of Oregon taxpayer's money is being spent. My gut feeling is that he won't Fedex that information to me anytime soon.
Water Resources Department
Just looking at this as an example, while it doesn't show individual job title and salary information, it does show how many employees there are. 10 positions have been cut in the 2003-2005 budget.
Here's the Board of Nursing page:
It has increased substantially. See if you think it should have. Go ahead and cut the Board of Nursing that oversees that nurses are properly trained. Then, when an improperly-trained nurse forgets to cross-check blood types and kills someone with a routine transfusion; well, accidents happen.
A lot of good information there.
And: Oregon State Board of Nursing
Quick check: the budget page indicated about 35 employees, and that looks about the same as the staff page; i.e., just about everyone is listed. You can start cutting there. Who's expendable?
The reason that I'm providing these examples is that you made it seem like it was hard to find information about the budget and what these departments do and who works where. It's not that hard.
Look at your post #28...it's feasible
I don't blame the new librarian, I blame the "public servant" who hired her and arrogantly increased the library's budget at a time when they are laying off teachers and releasing criminals due to revenue shortfalls.
If I was boss, there are some governmental heads that would roll, for sure.
The Board of Nursing is just one of several dozens of Agencies and Departments in Oregon's state government. If the Board of Nursing is indeed that important and it can't sustain any additional cuts and still provide a quality level of service, then no cuts to it's staff or funding would be made. Instead, painless cuts could perhaps be made to Oregon's Film & Video Office, or to Oregon's Office of Economic Analysis, or to the Oregon Wine Board, or to any of many other Agencies and Departments in the state. But what is needed before any additional cuts can be made to any Oregon Agency or Department is very detailed financial information about that Agency or Department, the kind of information that state legislatures try their best to keep the voters from finding out about.
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