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WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2022
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Tax
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change over the course of the current bi-
ennium.
In addition to the $3 billion personal
income tax kicker, the corporate kicker
is also expected to be tripped, sending
$930 million to the state’s K-12 budget.
Progressive lawmakers have long ad-
vocated for removing or reforming the
kicker, seeing it as a policy that benefits
the super-rich at the expense of state
programs.
Republicans have staunchly opposed
such suggestions.
“Thanks to the kicker, Oregonians
will get some of their taxes back and
with it, a much-needed break from the
increasing burden of inflation,” Senate
Republican Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend,
said. “Now, more than ever, it’s essential
to protect the kicker. Too much spend-
Students
Continued from Page 1A
dents for more than three decades.
She also mentored teams from Lee
Elementary (2019) and Chapman Ele-
mentary (2013) that placed nationally
in the ExploraVision competition.
"This group, more than any other
I've had, was never really satisfied,"
Foelkl said of the group's efforts to
ing got us into this inflation mess, it’s
not going to get us out.”
Taxpayers have seen several record
kickers in recent biennia, and econo-
mists said that so far those rebates
haven’t negatively impacted the state’s
spending capacity because the underly-
ing economic factors that were generat-
ing the kicker were strong enough to still
increase resources available to lawmak-
ers.
However, because this particular
kicker is dependent on uniquely large
personal income tax payments, that
pattern may not hold. From the previous
quarterly forecast, forecasted revenues
for the 2023-2025 biennium are down
more than $1.9 billion.
“We’re seeing a lot more of (the kick-
er) offset the balances that we’ve built
up,” McMullen said. “That’s largely be-
cause of the temporary nature ... of this
taxpayer-behavior-driven stuff that’s
going to go away.”
Economists also told lawmakers
there remains the threat of a recession,
either in the short term or long term due
to general negativity about the economy
or potential unintended consequences
stemming from actions the Federal Re-
serve is taking to combat inflation.
The country’s inflation rate was
about 8.3% last month compared to one
year ago, as measured by the Consumer
Price Index.
McMullen said there was “strong
consensus” from the advisors to the Of-
fice of Economic Analysis that a reces-
sion should not be built into the imme-
diate economic forecast, instead
suggesting a “soft landing” approach
that the Fed is trying to pull off.
The argument for that is individuals
and businesses still have plenty of
cushion in their balance sheets, plus the
supply chain issues largely responsible
for the current inflationary pressure are
expected to abate in the coming
months.
However, McMullen noted, the Fed
has not typically been successful
threading the needle on combating eco-
nomic factors without causing a “mone-
tary policy-induced recession.” There
are also factors outside of the Federal
Reserve’s control.
“Unfortunately, it’s still quite possi-
ble that we would enter into a recession
in the very near term because it’s not
really always about fundamentals,”
McMullen said. “Recession is funda-
mentally a psychological phenomenon
where everyone becomes pessimistic at
the same time and businesses and
households all pull back at the same
time and they create this self-fulfilling
prophecy. That doesn’t need to have un-
derlying issues or imbalances to hap-
pen.”
Reporter Connor Radnovich covers
the Oregon Legislature and state gov-
ernment.
Contact
him
at
cradnovich@statesmanjournal.com or
503-508-6131, or follow him on Twitter
at @CDRadnovich.
make every piece of the project better.
ExploraVision is the world's largest
K-12 science competition, with winners
sharing innovative proposals to help
overcome some of the greatest chal-
lenges facing the world today, from
healthcare to sustainability and energy
efficiency.
First- and second-place national
winners in each of four age divisions
are honored out of hundreds of en-
trants.
Jonathan, Esau, Claire and Audrey
competed in the grades 4-6 division.
Jonathan is a third grader and the oth-
ers are fourth graders.
Queen of Peace, a private school in
South Salem for preschool through fifth
grade, provided them the support to
work on a project for the ExploraVision
competition. The school offers an E-
STEM curriculum, integrating environ-
mental education with science, tech-
nology, engineering and math.
"This tied in so well with what
they're learning in their classrooms,"
Foelkl said.
Bennett presented the students with
certificates of recognition from the city.
"We're so proud you accomplished
this," Bennett said. "It's always a thrill
when somebody from Salem puts a
mark on the map."
Capi Lynn is the Statesman Jour-
nal’s news columnist. Contact her at
clynn@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-
399-6710, or follow her on Twitter
@CapiLynn and Facebook @CapiL-
ynnSJ.
Shortage
Continued from Page 1A
a couple hundred additional firefighters
and $100 million in disaster funds both
agencies can draw from to avoid raiding
their own budgets during expensive fire
seasons.
The amount the federal government
spends on wildfire suppression has
steadily risen over the past decades as
wildfires become larger and more in-
tense, reaching a record-setting $4.38
billion in 2021. A year ago, monster in-
fernos like California's Dixie and Caldor
fires burned more than a million acres,
destroyed multiple towns and more
than 2,300 structures, and cost $900
million and thousands of firefighters to
suppress.
In addition to an uptick in federal
firefighters, many states are also upping
the number of wildland firefighters they
employ, including an additional 100 fire
personnel in Oregon for 2022.
Concern about hiring firefighters
While the federal government and
states have optimistic goals, the reality
of hiring firefighters has proven chal-
lenging in the tight labor market.
"This is an urgent threat to natural
resources, public safety, and taxpayer
dollars, as the federal government pays
a premium to contract and borrow fire-
fighting resources from state and local
authorities when federal resources are
unavailable," the letter from lawmakers
stated.
In testimony before the Senate Ap-
propriations Committee May 4, Forest
Service Chief Randy Moore said the
agency had hired about 10,200 firefight-
ers, out of its goal of 11,300. But, he add-
ed, some areas had only reached 50% of
the staffing goal.
“We are making offers, and there’s a
lot of declinations in those offers,”
Moore said in the hearing. “There’s a lot
of competition in the labor market for
these skills. Because when you have
county, state and private firefighters of-
ten sometimes [making] double the sal-
aries the Forest Service firefighters are
making, it’s very hard to compete with
that.”
Federal entry-level wildland fire-
fighters earn roughly 50% less than fire-
fighters with the California state agency
Cal Fire, according to an analysis by the
Grassroots Wildland Firefighter Com-
mittee.
Firefighters with the Forest Service
earn about $38,000 per year, while their
counterparts that work for private or
state firefighting agencies make closer
to $70,000 to $80,000, acting Forest
Service chief Vicki Christiansen said in
a hearing last year. Some entry-level
firefighters make as little as $15 per hour.
Forest Service officials declined to
say exactly where the shortfalls in hiring
were, but the response drew concern
from Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon.
“Fifty percent sounds a little scary
when you’re thinking about the fires
that we’ll be facing in our various
states,” Merkley said in the hearing.
Merkley expressed confidence that
“the agency is making steady progress
in hiring more firefighters and is work-
ing to have the firefighting resources
they need as wildfire season gets under-
way,” he said in an email to the States-
man Journal.
The Department of Interior, which
plans to hire 5,600 fire personnel, said it
had hired 4,100 so far, but added that it
was typical not to reach full staffing un-
til summer.
The letter said that years of low pay
Brentt Call, left, and Mike Poulos, firefighters with Utah Taskforce One, take a break from securing a fire line on the Bootleg
Fire east of Klamath Falls that burned more than 413,000 acres during the 2021 fire season. CHRIS PIETSCH/THE REGISTER-GUARD
and other issues have "hollowed out the
federal wildland firefighting workforce."
What kind of wildfire season will it
be?
An end to ‘fire borrowing’ and rise
of emergency fund
The forecast of the coming season
paints a picture of high wildfire danger
in the Southwest through June before
the above-normal risk shifts to northern
California by June, the entire middle of
the county by July and much of the West
Coast by August.
This year already has been active,
with Arizona's Tunnel Fire burning 30
homes and multiple wildfires in New
Mexico forcing the evacuations of thou-
sands.
“Looking at the risk map overall, I’d
say we’re preparing for another long
year,” said Jessica Gardetto, a National
Interagency Fire Center spokeswoman
in Boise and a former wildland firefight-
er. “Almost the entire central swath of
the country comes into the (high dan-
ger) zone, so if we have a lot of activity
there, and then if we have the type of
fires we’ve seen across the West recent-
ly, that could be a real strain on re-
sources.”
During the height of the 2021 wildfire
season, which was more active than
normal, some wildfire crews across the
West, including in Oregon, reported be-
ing short-staffed as resources were
shifted to areas where the danger to
communities was highest.
“Last year we did get stretched pretty
thin on resources,” Forest Service
spokesman Brian Reublinger said. “But
it’s pretty normal that fires will ex-
change resources and things when one
fire has a greater need over another, es-
pecially in a busy year.”
Much of the risk this season is
spurred by the ongoing megadrought
west of the Mississippi. Seventy-five
percent of the High Plains is experienc-
ing at least moderate drought while 77%
of the West remains mired in severe
drought, despite improvements during
The amount of money available to
federal agencies to fight wildfires has
grown since a 2018 bill established the
ability for agencies to access a “disaster/
reserve” fund that grew to $2.45 billion
this year, up from $2.35 billion a year
ago.
In 2018, Congress passed legislation
that allowed the agencies to tap disaster
funds when suppression costs exceed-
ed their budget.
Both agencies said the legislation has
helped eliminate the practice of “fire
borrowing,” in which the agencies
would raid from their other depart-
ments, including recreation, engineer-
ing and even fire prevention programs,
to pay for the soaring costs of fighting
wildfires.
“To date, it has been very successful,”
a Forest Service spokesperson said of
the program, adding that the agency
dipped into those funds in 2021.
The program works like this: If either
agency uses up its entire fire suppres-
sion budget, it can then go to the emer-
gency fund rather than using up other
parts of its budget. It can pay for addi-
tional contract firefighters, large fire
camps or whatever else might be need-
ed.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who helped
author the legislation, said the program
has worked as intended.
“Since 2018, the Forest Service and
Interior are no longer forced to raid pre-
vention funds to fight fires,” Wyden
said. “Oregonians know all too well the
devastation of today's wildfires. When
it comes to saving lives and property
from destruction, prevention and sup-
pression must go hand in hand.”
a wet and cool April, according to the
U.S. Drought Monitor.
The final ingredient is that long-term
forecasts indicate a hot and dry summer
across basically the entire United States
— potentially fueling quick-spreading
fires in many different parts of the coun-
try.
Taken together, the fire season looks
just a bit better than a year ago — which
set records for destruction and cost —
but not much, Gardetto said.
“Honestly, at this point, all we can do
is plan for the worst and hope for the
best,” she said.
U.S. wildfire suppression budget
U.S. Forest Service base funds:
$1.011 billion
Department of Interior base funds:
$384 million
Disaster/reserve funds: $2.45 bil-
lion
Unspent reserve funds from previ-
ous years: $612 million DOI; $271.7 mil-
lion for USFS
Total possible funds: $4.7 billion
Federal firefighting resources
(USFS and DOI)
Firefighters/personnel:
16,900
(11,300 USFS, 5,600 DOI)
Engines: 1,549 (649 DOI, 900 USFS)
Air tankers/helicopters/aircraft:
334 (111 DOI, more than 200 USFS)
Zach Urness has been an outdoors re-
porter in Oregon for 15 years and is host
of the Explore Oregon Podcast. To sup-
port his work, subscribe to the States-
man Journal. Urness is the author of
“Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon” and
“Hiking Southern Oregon.” He can be
reached
at
zurness@StatesmanJournal.com
or
(503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at
@ZachsORoutdoors