The Oregon legislature’s budget-writing committee came to southern Oregon Friday night as part of a series of hearings around the state. Lawmakers are facing a shortfall of about $1.6 billion for the next two-year budget period.
The Senate and House budget leaders – both Democrats -- have proposed a budget that makes deep cuts in many programs and services. Citizens representing a wide range of programs came out to make their case for continuing to fund what they say are essential services.
Hundreds of people crammed into the Rogue River Room at Southern Oregon University in Ashland to attend the hearing, as Senate budget chair Richard Devlin welcomed them.
One by one, advocates for an array of state services asked that their programs be spared.
Ron Fox, a board member for Rogue Community College, said reducing funds for the school would hobble its important role in southern Oregon’s economy.
“There are hundreds of jobs that are on the docket, but unable to be filled, good-paying jobs that need the assistance of a community college education to be successful,” he said.
Bill Landis, chief of the Grants Pass Department of Public Safety, said threatened cuts to the Oregon State Police would mean more bad drugs on local streets.
“This would devastate law enforcement efforts to prevent the supply of narcotics such as methamphetamine and heroin into rural communities such as ours.”
Adam Peterson is a child welfare worker who deals with addicted teens in Jackson County. He said he and his colleagues are already struggling with growing caseloads and inadequate funding.
“Child welfare workers work at an intersection of all vulnerabilities,” he said. “Substance abuse, domestic violence, mental illness, sexual assault, poverty and homelessness are just the beginning … And the message that the Oregon people receive from cutting programs like ours is that either there is no answer for these people or the solution is unimportant.”
Sharon Hardy told the panel she’s cared for her two developmentally disabled grandsons since they were babies. When she asked the state for in-home help so she could continue to hold down a job, she said, she was told none was available. She reluctantly placed one of the boys in a distant group home, deeply disrupting their family.
“I don’t think I’m the only one that wants to keep my child at home,” she said, her voice quavering as she tried to hold back tears. “Nobody’s going to love him the way that I do. Nobody’s going to care for him the way that I do.”
Hardy said she later found out that the state pays the group home 15-thousand dollars a month for her grandson’s care, much more than in-home help would have cost.
From agricultural extension services to K-12 public schools to community corrections programs to noxious weed control, supporters pled with lawmakers to spare their programs from the budget ax. Many made the point that their services save money in the long run by reducing the need for more costly interventions down the road.
Kember Dollarhide is a children’s case manager with Jackson County Developmental Disability Services.
“Cutting funding from children who didn’t do anything wrong other than being born with a disability is not going to fix the budget,” she said. “It will only increase the cost of hospital stays, jails and cases in child welfare.”
Many speakers at the hearing urged legislators to avoid cuts by raising taxes on corporations. According to a report by the Anderson Economic Group, when the lack of a state sales tax is factored in, Oregon has the lowest business tax burden in the U.S.
Oregon’s economy is doing well, and state revenue is expected to increase by an estimated $1.3 billion over the coming two-year budget period. But higher costs for health care and public employee pensions, the growing impacts of property-tax-limiting measures passed in the 1990s – plus about $357 million in new spending on education and veterans services approved by voters last November – have outpaced the new income.
Senate budget chair Richard Devlin has said the all-cuts budget he and House budget chair Nancy Nathanson have proposed is unacceptable. The Democrats put it forward largely to make the case for raising more revenue, probably through some sort of increased corporate tax.
Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli has said Republicans will focus on “setting better spending priorities and demonstrating budget discipline.”
