Legislative budget helps K-12 but hurts higher ed
COCC president says proposal hurts college
Published: March 23. 2007 4:00AM PST
SALEM - As the budget numbers flashed from a projector onto a movie screen on the side of the Oregon House chamber, some legislators nodded approvingly - while others sat with their arms crossed.
The reaction was much the same outside the Capitol on Thursday, as those figures - the handiwork of the Legislature's chief budget writers - filtered across the state.
Oregon's budget picture for 2007-09 is the rosiest it's been since the state's economy spiraled into a recession in 2001.
But the budget blueprint shows that, even with an estimated $15 billion in income tax and lottery receipts to spend in the next two years, Oregon still won't be able to afford every program on everybody's wish list.
A glaring example: While the plan calls for a robust overall increase in education spending, it could be disastrous for higher education in Central Oregon, said university and community college administrators.
At the same time, it was applauded by K-12 school officials who say Central Oregon schoolchildren will be the big winners.
"This is a definite step in the right direction," said Redmond Schools Superintendent Vickie Fleming, who said administrators are already drawing up plans to spend an extra $1 million, mostly in literacy programs.
Yet at Central Oregon Community College, president Jim Middleton was nonplussed.
"There was not balanced attention across the education spectrum," he said.
Community college officials had hopes that lawmakers would steer enough to post-secondary education to avoid tuition increases, he said, but that now looks unlikely.
He also said the level of funding envisioned for universities looks to erode the possibilities at the Bend branch campus of Oregon State University.
"At the level they're talking about, it becomes almost tokenism," he said. "If our funds are cut, we are not able to feed as many students and if their funds are cut back, they are not able to serve them."
Tug of war expected
The release of the spending plan from the powerful co-chairmen of the Legislature's Joint Ways and Means Committee is the traditional jumpstart of serious budget negotiations at the Capitol, and Thursday was no exception. Lawmakers must pass a balanced budget before they adjourn.
The co-chairmen - Sen. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, and Rep. Mary Nolan, D-Portland - said they expect to see a lively tug of war in the next three months over the state's priorities. The new budget cycle begins July 1.
And it won't just be legislators and lobbyists in the fray.
The public will get a chance to wade into the debate when the Ways and Means Committee travels across the state for a series of hearings in April, including a Bend session on April 12.
"This is the starting point," said State Sen. Ben Westlund, D-Tumalo, a member of the Ways and Means panel who was a budget co-chairman in 2001. "Up until now, it has been posturing and positioning - but now the real work begins, and it is always a dogfight."
The budget plan calls for general fund and lottery spending of $6.24 billion on K-12 schools - a figure just shy of the $6.3 billion sought by education lobbyists.
Bend LaPine Schools superintendent Doug Nelson said that figure means the district will be able to work on reducing class sizes from kindergarten to third grade and also devote more resources to literacy programs.
The new plan also steers $100 million to affordable housing with part of that money from an increase in deed filing fees, adds 100 new police troopers without instituting a tax on auto insurance that was proposed by the governor, and allots $50 million in matching funds for road work in rural counties that are losing federal timber subsidies.
Among other highlights, the plan:
* Helps college students pay for tuition through a "shared responsibility model" proposed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski. Under that plan, students must work at least part-time in order to get state tuition assistance.
* Dedicates $100 million in bonds to pay for a new round of nonhighway transportation projects for railroads, ports and airports.
* Steers 1 percent of the budget into a new savings fund passed by lawmakers this month.
* Expands day care for low-income families, increases programs for abused and at-risk children, increases spending on gang intervention and expands Head Start preschool programs.
* Maintains prison funding based on the current trajectory of inmates, meaning the new Madras prison will open as planned, and steers money to replace the dilapidated state mental hospital.
* Reduces spending on government administration by more than $60 million from 2005-07 levels.
'You have to pay the bill'
The co-chairmen also slam the brakes on a plan by Kulongoski to borrow heavily to construct new buildings and make repairs at community colleges and universities. The proposed $56.2 million in new construction is about 20 percent of what the governor sought.
"The debt burden continues to skyrocket and if we don't flatten that trajectory we will be in trouble," said Schrader, the co-chairman from the Senate.
Nolan, the House budget chief, compared the borrowing to a teenager charging up a credit card: "Sooner or later, you have to pay the bill," she said.
But the impact to higher education isn't just on the construction side, lamented University System Chancellor George Pernsteiner, who canceled plans to visit Bend today in order to deal with the unexpected budget news.
The backlog of needed projects only figures to grow, and that will make it harder to invest in new buildings in Central Oregon, he said.
The budget proposal also severely undercuts any plans to expand university-level education in Central Oregon because there appears to be less to pay for enrollment growth, and a proposed allotment of $9 million - which was to be shared by the state's five regional colleges including the fledgling Oregon State University Cascades Campus in Bend - was cut to $2 million.
Developing the details of the budget now falls to the subcommittees of the Ways and Means Committee. There are separate panels for education, human services, general government, natural resources, economic development and public safety.
There is also the possibility legislators could raise additional taxes to help pay for new programs or to expand higher education. For instance, lawmakers are considering a hike in the minimum annual taxes for corporations, which has remained at $10 a year since the 1930s.
The plan anticipates lawmakers will raise cigarette taxes to pay for childrens' healthcare.
However, that's not a certainty.
House Minority Leader Wayne Scott said he will try to block any new tax incerases - and in the narrowly divided House, Republican votes would be needed to pass new taxes.
"House Republicans will vigorously oppose a massive tax increase to grow the size of government," he said.
James Sinks can be reached at 503-566-2839 or at jsinks@bendbulletin.com.
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