GOV CALLS
HUDDLE ON
SCHOOL TAX
The Eugene City Council voted 8-0 Jan.
24 to pursue a May ballot measure on an
income tax for schools struggling with
drastic budget cuts.
But now the governor appears to be
getting involved. This week Nancy Golden,
Gov. Kitzhaber’s new advisor on education,
called a Feb. 2 meeting between Kitzhaber
and local school officials around the state
considering local tax options.
Eugene District 4J Superintendent
George Russell will attend the meeting
with Kitzhaber, 4J spokesperson Kerry
Delf said.
Mayor Piercy has also been invited,
along with Joy Marshall of Stand for
Children. It’s unclear whether Kitzhaber
will support or oppose local efforts to fund
schools.
The Eugene tax measure could raise $14
million or more a year to reduce the impact
of huge budget cuts that could lay off 100
teachers, boost some class sizes to 50 or
more, and cut schools to four days a week.
The council plans to discuss details of
the measure on Feb. 14 and take a final
vote. The 4J School Board may vote Feb. 9
on whether to support the additional city
funding and how much.
Hillary Johnson, a parent helping lead
the grassroots effort to fund schools, said
school advocates will continue to push the
council and School Board for final
approval. “We’re very happy we had an 8-0
vote to put it on the May ballot,” she said.
“It was a victory.”
Several conservative councilors
appeared to indicate they may ultimately
oppose referring a school funding measure
to a May ballot vote, but a majority of four
councilors and the mayor spoke in favor of
a May measure to save local schools.
That majority could shift, however, if
the Eugene School Board somehow
opposes getting money from the city.
School advocates and the city have been
discussing the revenue measure for the last
two months, but the 4J and Bethel school
boards have yet to take an official position.
Asked if he supported the May revenue
measure as opposed to calls by some
councilors to delay a vote until November,
4J Superintendent George Russell
responded, “Obviously, the sooner the
better.” Russell said a November vote
would force the district to implement
another year of deep cuts because by state
law the district must plan a budget by June
30.
Russell’s proposed budget includes $10
million in revenue from a city tax measure.
HEAVY HAUL TO ROLL ON?
More than 30 pieces of massive tar sands equipment from Imperial Oil made their way
up the Columbia River to the Port of Lewiston and have been sitting at the port since
December. The river is currently shut down for repairs to the dams, but at least 170 more
loads are planned for when the locks reopen.
Four similar megaloads belonging to ConocoPhillips seem to have cleared a legal hurdle
in Idaho that could set a precedent for the Kearl Module Transport Project loads, but
opponents are still working to get the plan stopped before Imperial Oil’s mega-sized oil
machinery makes its way through Montana.
Groups such as Oregon and Montana-based All Against the Haul (AATH) have objected
not only to using the Columbia/Snake river system and scenic byways in Montana to
facilitate turning Canada’s boreal forests into strip mines; they are also concerned about the
effects the massive loads — some are 210 feet long, 30 feet high, 24 feet wide and weigh
more than 500,000 pounds — will have on the roadways themselves and on nearby forests
and rivers. Local residents in Montana and Idaho fear vital services such as ambulance
8
JANUARY 27, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
State law prohibits the school system from
passing its own tax increase to fund school
operations.
The 4J District, however, has been
considering a May measure to fund not
operations, but school construction. Russell
said he is unsure whether the two measures
should be on the same ballot. A May bond
measure could allow the district to get $15
million in federal matching funds.
But voter confusion could hurt the
chance of passage for both measures.
People may not understand that 4J cannot
use its construction bond measure to pay
teachers, according to Russell. “I’m not
sure folks will get the difference,” he said.
Another unresolved issue is how soon
4J could start using the money to avert
budget cuts if the measure passed in May.
The district may be able to use its limited
reserves, borrow from city reserves or
borrow commercially in anticipation of the
revenue, a common government practice.
Details remain undecided, but school
supporters have discussed a graduated
income tax starting at 0.5 percent and
increasing to 1.5 percent for the wealthy
that would raise at least about $10 million
for 4J and $4 million for Bethel schools per
year in proportion to the number of Eugene
children they serve. The income tax
discussed would exempt those below
$50,000 in annual income and sunset in six
years.
School supporters say their polling
shows such a tax could pass if voters are
given a chance to vote. A state income tax
on the wealthy passed in Eugene last year
by a 3-1 margin. — Alan Pittman
INCOME GAP
PLAGUES
OREGON
Oregon Center for Public Policy
recently released several studies looking
at income inequality in Oregon. OCPP is
a nonpartisan research institute in
Silverton that does in-depth analysis of
budget, tax and economic issues. Their
goal is to generate material that improves
decision-making, thus generating more
opportunities for all Oregonians. They
can be found at www.occpp.org and
contacted by phone at (503) 873-1201
A recent Oregonian story by Jeff
Manning summarized the rising income
gaps in Oregon. Inflation-adjusted
annual wages for Oregon’s top 2 percent
of earners hit $153,480 on average in
2008, a 29.5 percent increase from 1990.
Median workers wages stood at $32,659,
a 2.4 percent increase. The lowest
income percentile saw an increase from
$15, 512 in 1990 to $16,622 in the same
time frame, an increase of 6.6 percent.
OCPP’s most recent release was on
the economic impact that Oregon’s
recent increase in the minimum wage
will have. Oregon’s minimum wage rose
by 10 cents on Jan. 1 as a result of
Measure 25, which passed in 2002.
“A strong minimum wage is good for
low-wage workers and is good for
Oregon’s economy,” says Chuck
Sheketoff, executive director of the
OCPP. “The extra dollars help low-
transport could be affected by the slow moving loads that take up both sides of the roadways.
The Idaho Transportation Department decided last week to let the ConocoPhillips loads
go through. Those loads are being moved by Oregon-based Emmert International and are
destined for an oil refinery in Billings.
The Montana Department of Transportation has said once Idaho gives approval it would
issue ConocoPhillips permits for the four loads. MDT has not yet released a final
environmental assessment on Imperial Oil’s 207 megaloads, though EW found a draft of that
assessment on the internet dated August 2010 issuing a “finding of no significant impact.”
Trish Weber of AATH says the group “considers the Imperial Oil rigs to be a different
situation than the ConocoPhillips rigs, largely due to the fact that the construction necessary
to allow passage of the Imperial Oil rigs would constitute permanent improvements that
would allow future passage of other megaloads.”
The Port of Lewiston has indicated hopes it will become a gateway to a permanent high
and wide load corridor.
Weber says that it remains unclear exactly how the ConocoPhillips rigs are
actually going to navigate the Montana
portion of the route. She says that that there
does not appear to be sufficient turnouts in
place for the loads to pull into to allow the
rigs to stop and allow other traffic to pass,
as required by state law.
“AATH has groups in both Montana and
Idaho who are organizing to perform
monitoring of the ConocoPhillips loads, if
and when they roll,” she says, and she
adds, “If the rigs do no meet the delay
times that are stated in the respective state
transportation plans, it will provide further
ammunition in the legal cases.”
The group has recently published a
book on the issue, Heart of the Monster,
written by environmental writers Rick Bass
and David James Duncan, which is
available at http://allagainstthehaul.org
— Camilla Mortensen
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