TO THE EDITOR
passing even their guilt onto our shoulders.
With role models and expectations such as
these, who can blame our young people for
simply not caring?
Nicolas McGovern
Corvallis
BLESSED ARE THE POOR
It becomes ever more apparent that the
economic elite, the rich capitalists, the mili-
tary-industrial-media-etc.-complex
are
happy to risk the global environment, upon
which we all depend, in order to insure that
they come out in control of what little will be
left.
Their version of fighting environmental
problems would seem to be reducing popula-
tion by manipulating other countries and peo-
ple at home into letting the poor starve from
worsening environmental conditions. It’s a
matter of “They came for the poorest and I
didn’t stand up because I wasn’t the poorest.”
Then repeat the same line until even the rich
are poor beyond their present imaginings.
I wouldn’t mind so much if I felt the eco-
nomic elite were also the moral and intellec-
tual elite, if wealth was reasonably propor-
tional to real and potential social contribu-
tions, but we’re pretty far from that. The main
problem is not so much about conserving and
developing green technology as about politi-
cal will to change on a large scale.
Ultimately though, any who survive will
be the poor who are independent of global
economics, those who have skills other than
manipulating money systems, who are used
to stress and know how to
adapt and live off the land, to
live with nature instead of
against it. But how many of us
can survive, and for how long,
on an increasingly desert
planet, and where will it end?
It begins to seem a bit like
poker. Maybe our best strat-
egy is to reply to their risky bet
with a bigger one, to change
the present game before
they’re ready, while there’s
still something of environ-
mental value left in the global
pot.
Dan Robinson
Eugene
BY BILL FLEENOR & SCOTT BARTLETT
Lane County at a
Crossroads
How we got in this predicament
T
eddy Roosevelt has been quoted as saying: “In any moment of decision, the best
thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and
the worst thing you can do is nothing.” The citizens of Lane County, through
their elected representatives, are at a crossroads — do we continue to do the same thing
and expect different results? Or do we try something different, thus opening up the pos-
sibility of success? Albert Einstein often quipped that you cannot expect to solve a prob-
lem using the same set of solutions that created the problem.
Now, a little history — Oregon voters passed a sweeping series of Constitutional
Amendments in the 1990s (Measures 5, 47 & 50) during a period of time of tax revolt,
where certain fiscal conservatives espoused the concept of “starving the beast” — gov-
ernment spending. These measures established state constitutional limits on Oregon’s
property taxes on real estate. For example, under Measure 5, property taxes for purpos-
es other than school funding were capped at $10 per $1,000 assessed value.
Collectively, the three tax limitation measures transferred primary responsibility for
school funding from local property taxes to state income taxes, established permanent
property tax rates for each local government and ensured only “assessed value” of
property could increase at a rate of 3 percent per year. By the way, virtually all county
and municipal governments obtain their discretionary funding through property taxes.
Lane County, like many federal timber-dependent counties, having received signifi-
cant timber revenue from decades of timber harvest off of federal lands, had not
increased our property tax rates maximally, and as such was caught with an artificially
low property tax rate as compared to those counties and municipalities that did not
rely upon timber receipts. For example, Lane County’s permanent tax rate is $1.27 per
$1,000 assessed value as compared to Multnomah with a $5.27 rate or Eugene with a
$7.01 rate or Springfield with $4.47. Many of the federal timber revenue-dependent
counties are below $2, e.g., Douglas at $1.08; Coos at $1.04 and Curry at $.58. In stark
contrast, Wheeler County, a non-federal timber dependent county, has a permanent tax
rate of $8.48.
To further exacerbate Lane County’s financial woes, its federal timber revenue was
drastically reduced commencing in 1990 from harvesting about 4 billion board feet per
year to about 100 million board feet per year in 1998, remaining at that rate to current
times. The rapid reduction in federal timber harvest was a result of a federal court rul-
ing in 1991 that the 1976 National Forest Management Act mandates all federal forests
be managed for maximum biodiversity and multipurpose use — this was the beginning
of the end of the century-old “green gold rush” for Oregon.
Fortunately for Oregonians, back in the early 1990s, our congressional delegation
was Johnny-on-the-spot and was able to enact federal legislation in the form of a
Safety Net Payment to Counties Act, wherein the Oregon federal timber-dependent
counties would receive a guaranteed payment in lieu of timber receipts equal to 85
percent of the base year’s harvest between 1986 to 1990. The catch: the payments
would decline 3 percent each year until 2003, at which time the funds would stop.
However, once again, our federal delegation saw the writing on the wall and passed the
Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act of 2000, which guaran-
teed federal timber payments in lieu of timber harvest revenue for six additional years.
This money ran out last year in the fall of 2006, and like many of the other federal tim-
ber-dependent counties, Lane County scrambled to either find additional revenue (such
as an income tax) or be prepared to perform drastic cuts to personnel and services.
Miraculously, at the last minute of the last hour in May 2007, the federal government
extended the timber payments for one additional year.
Yet another contributing factor, Oregon’s Public Employee Retirement System,
started in the 1940s and modified from time to time, has become an ever-growing
financial obligation to the taxpayers of Oregon as progressively more employees reach
retirement age, bringing with them a guaranteed minimum return on their investments,
along with a diminishing public workforce to help defray those escalating costs. Lane
County is required under state law to participate in PERS and is responsible for its pro-
portionate cost to maintain the fund and participate in any additional bonding neces-
sary to guarantee adequate reserves. At this time, Lane County is paying debt service
on an approximately $69 million PERS bond.
L
ane County is currently challenged to reconcile all of these above external events
forced upon it over the last several decades, against current needs and demands
of providing essential services to its citizens while at the same time providing fair
and just compensation to its work force. These events have created the perfect financial
storm threatening to despoil our county’s community landscape. In fact, many knowl-
edgeable economists believe Lane County represents the canary in the proverbial mine
shaft — we will be one of the first Oregon counties to be fatally hit by this confluence of
events.
Do we try to solve our current problem with old solutions or take no action? Or do
we try something different and new in hopes of reaching equilibrium between our abili-
ty to pay and providing essential public services. Lane County has been struggling with
a financial imbalance since Measures 5, 47 and 50 were enacted, wherein it receives
slightly more than a 3 percent increase in property tax revenue each year, offset by
operational costs that increase at about 7 percent; the imbalance of 4 percent is called
the structural deficit.
The way Lane County has been routinely dealing with this deficit has been to eat
away at reserves and reduce the size of its employee work force. In fact, over the last
27 years, Lane County has reduced employee numbers from a high of about 1,885 to a
current level of about 1,485 employees. During this same time, the county, the size of
the state of Connecticut, has grown in population from about 265,000 to its current
340,000 citizens. It has also cut $18 million from its budget, reduced essential public
services and consumed most of its reserves. But like any organization that is mandated
by law to provide essential public services, there is a minimum level of staffing required
below which vital service delivery may be jeopardized.
M
ost of Lane County’s employees work under contract and through many years
of bargaining (compelled by state law) have achieved increasing compensation
packages consistent with similar-sized public organizations. Included in these
bargaining contracts are the obligations inherent in the PERS system and mandated by
the state. However, public employees should not be made scapegoats for sweeping state
tax reforms and federal timber harvest levels outside of our/their control.
The immediate quintessential decision for Lane County citizens is — do we contin-
ue to downsize our county by progressively laying off more county employees and
reducing or eliminating many essential public safety and health programs in the
process? Or do we strive for creative adjustments based upon broad consensus with
the goal of preserving maximum possible levels of both vital services and the important
family wages jobs which deliver those services? Regardless of any ultimate outcome,
many of our neighbors and friends will be affected, some much worse than others.
Working from the same set of fiscal facts, let us all participate in crafting a shared
vision for our beautiful but endangered Lane County.
Bill Fleenor, (bill.fleenor@co.lane.or.us) is a Lane County commissioner. Scott Bartlett (wascobar@efn.net) is a Lane
County Budget Committee member.
AUGUST 16, 2007 9