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Editorial
Board |
| Robert L. Hunter,
Editor |
| Julie Wurth,
Managing Editor |
| Wm. H. Manny, Executive News Editor |
| John N. Reid,
Executive Editor |
House vote may decide shape of state school budget
Oregon legislators want to have it both ways as this odd legislative session makes the turn for the home stretch.
The majority Republicans want to take credit for expanding spending on higher education and state police. But they don't want to say where the money for this spending will come from. What we do know is that the majority Republicans won't support new income taxes and won't dip into the state income tax "kicker" that will otherwise be rebated to taxpayers next winter.
And now the House proposes to say that Oregon can't spend the $180 million expected over the next two years from the tobacco lawsuit settlement, either.
Oregon's in a weird place. You know things have gotten weird when the governor, who the Republicans criticize as a free-spending liberal, vetoes the Republicans' higher-ed budget because it spends too much money, which is what happened this week.
Kitzhaber vetoed the bill not because he disagrees with the increase -- he doesn't -- but as a protest; the GOP higher-ed increase will come at the expense of K-12 education, social programs (including a juvenile crime initiative) or the Oregon Health Plan. There's still no framework in which the governor, the public or legislators can judge the trade-offs these ad-hoc spending proposals present.
Next week could decide things for schools, and that decision could come in the guise of the tobacco settlement bill, House Bill 2007.
Oregon's share of the settlement will bring as much as $2 billion into Oregon over the next couple decades, with an estimated $180 million over the next two years. HB 2007 would put the tobacco money into a trust fund, and spend the modest interest it generates for such things as tobacco cessation programs.
Kitzhaber has proposed to spend $130 million of that money for schools, and another $15 million to back $150 million worth of school bonds. House Democrats are offering an alternative to HB 2007 along similar lines: they would "securitize" the revenue and buy $200 million in what are essentially bonds.
Kitzhaber now backs that alternative.
PUTTING ALL THE money into a trust fund would be a fine way to treat the money if the Legislature wasn't intent on not putting all other significant sources of revenue off-limits, too.
House Speaker Lynn Snodgrass says the governor wants to "grow" state government -- as if that's his sole goal in recommending a bigger school budget.
But student population is growing, as are the demands on teachers and students. A bipartisan task force concluded that the state needs more than $5 billion over the next two years to implement the school reforms (the new CIMs and CAMs) that past Legislatures mandated.
Trying to reach those goals isn't arbitrary "government growing." It's honoring commitments made to taxpayers, parents and (not least of all) children.
SNODGRASS' HOUSE HAS a $4.75 billion school plan; the governor wants $4.95 billion; Senate President Brady Adams remains uncommitted, apparently somewhere in between.
But time is running out for the Legislature to do the right thing for Oregon schools. Passing HB 2007 would be more whistling in the budget darkness. Legislators two or four years hence, who could face a troubled economy and deep cuts in spending, may not have the chance to give schools a much-needed boost. And those legislators will curse this crop of lawmakers who seem ready to squander yet another opportunity to invest money in hand to halt Oregon's slide toward mediocrity in schools.
