6
Budgeteers Puzzled
This is budget-making- time for state
officials and you can take it from de
partment and institution heads that the
chore is no picnic.
It is a comparatively simple matter
to list the financial needs of an es
tablished agency in normal times when
salaries and supply costs are static. But
these are not normal times. No one can
foretell the future trend of the financial
spiral— whether it will go up or down.
Should salary and s u p p l y costs
remain at the present levels for the next
biennium the state will admittedly be
hard-pressed to finance its activities
within the 6 per cent constitutional tax
increase. The last legislature that of
1943— made allowance for a moderate
increase in costs but experience has
demonstrated that the allowance was
far from adequate.
Many state departments and institu
tions have been able to struggle through
without a deficit only by operating
with sharply curtailed staffs. The sav
ing thus made has gone into higher
salaries in order to hold even a- skeleton
of an organization against the compe
tition of foderal agencies and war in
dustries. Scores of state employees have
deserted to federal agencies whose more
generous appropriations out of Uncle
Sam’s treasury permit the payment of
salaries and wages far above the state
level. N ot only has this competition
taken many irreplaceable employees out
of state departments and institutions
but it has left a bad taste in the mouths
of the loyal ones who have remained on
the job. The fact th at federal employees,
in some instances working in the same
room w ith state employees, were re
ceiving from 25 to 30 per cent more
pay for doing exactly the same type of
work is not calculated to make for
contentment.
Salaries and wages represent approxi
mately 50 per cent of the cost of op
erating appropriative departments and
institutions in Oregon. O f a total of
$22,328,789 appropriated by the last
legislature, $11,287,331 represents sal
aries and wages. An increase of even
10 per cent in this amount— and it will
probably take that much to restore Ore
gon’s official family to its prewar basis
and keep salaries, up to present levels—
means an increase of $1,128,000. And
such an increase is not to be treated
lightly under Oregon’s tax limitations.
Governor Snell is seriously concerned
over the situation, and well he might
be. I t’s going to take some skillful man
euvering to keep the budget balanced
for the next biennium, especially if the
state is to make any substantial dent in
its long-deferred building program.
That $1,400,000 which the governor
tucked away for a possible emergency
in this year’s tax levy will doubtless
come in pretty handy when the ways
and means committee gets down to
doling out the appropriations for an
other two years.
A. L. Lindbeck in Ore. Journal,
Money in the Pot
(Continued from page 5)
expended appropriations amounting to
a total of $687,308. This is largely due
to the inability of the state to make
capital improvements during the last
biennium. The governor recommended
an item of $1,400,000 "for rehabilita
tion and reconstruction of urgently
needed facilities.”
It seems entirely proper to roll along
these unexpended appropriations and to
conserve the excess of miscellaneous re
ceipts for capital improvements. The
state will need all this money and more
too merely to catch up w ith deferred
building. The whole sum could wisely
be spent out at the state hospital alone.
So while the use of the device is un
usual, it is entirely legal and sound
public policy.
— Oregon Statesman, 9-22-44