Speaking Out
By ELAINE EVERHART
For Quality Care
you five minutes will
take me 25. I need
caregivers 24/7. Five
of them work shifts to
- &
help to do the things a
« I
healthy person does
almost without think
J|
ing, Whether it's
bathing, using the
l ì i i y lis i
toilet, getting in and
RÌ
out of bed, dressing or
■
eating, I need someone
to help me do it.
«K
■
The lives of real
people will be im
pacted by the deci
sions the Legislature
makes — or doesn't
Elainë Everhart after speaking at the Govenor’s public hearing.
make — over the
course of the special
session that begins on
February 8. The state budget is in
I cannot hold the newspaper in front of
deficit by $850 million, a number
my eyes, as you are, to read a guest
beyond the comprehension of many of
opinion. I can't raise my arms. I have
us. But, for me, and hundreds of
a rare disease that is turning m y soft
thousands of others just like you, that
tissue into bone. -My joints are fusing
number determines the level of our
together. Very little of me moves.
safety, our health, our education and
Anything that I do, I must have help
our independence.
with. I can't step. My jaw is clenched,
These programs enable elderly
permanently fused since 1975. I have
Oregonians to continue to live at home.
trouble breathing. My wheelchair is
Another one gives teenaged girls a safe
specially made so that I can "sit" in it
place to reside as they turn their lives
standing up.
around. Some provide temporary
My disease, called
assistance for needy families. Working
fibrodysplasia ossification progressiva
Oregonians need care for illness, injury
(FOP), sends deranged genetic instruc
and catastrophe.
tions that slowly displace muscle,
We hear talk about bringing
tendons and ligaments, locking me
government closer to the people. Well,
inside a rigid skeletal encasement. It
it can't get any closer to me. The cuts
afflicts one in two million births.
proposed for the state budget will
About 300 cases are documented
affect me w here! live.
worldwide with about half of them in
The cuts will not reduce fat.
the United States. I am one of two
They will eliminate muscle, bone and
persons in Oregon with this disease; a
brain. Our lawmakers need to see
young woman of about 19 in Klamath
people — not just numbers — on the
Falls also has FOB.
spreadsheets in front of them.
I've had this disease all my life.
Legislators and the Governor
Next week (February 13), I turn 55.
have a big task. Now is not the time
But, I was active. I loved to ride horses.
for them to ignore or abandon the
I could drive cars up until about 10
people our government was put in
years ago. I've run my own business. I
place to serve.
was married for 31 years; with my
husband, I hunted and fished. I was an
EDITOR’S NOTE: To learn more about
office coordinator at my church, put
fibrodysplasia ossification progressiva
ting in as many as 60 hours a week.
Now, activities that may take
(FOP), go to www.ifopa.org.
L
PACE 6 TH E OREGON PUBLIC EMPLOYEE
■■I h
ment, pushing many of their costs —
especially those of k-12schools — onto
the state government. This measure
would make it difficult to meet the needs
of Oregonians, including those it acquired
from local government in the past 12
years.
Since Measure 5 's passage, state gov
ernment has assumed more and more of
the cost of k-12 public éducation, after the
property tax — which largely was used to
pay for local schools — was capped.
Additionally, ballot measures approved
by the voters can take huge bites out of
the state government budget For ex
ample, Ballot Measure 11, approved by
the voters in 1994, enacted high manda
tory minimum sentences for a long list of
felonies. As a consequence, with forecasts
that predict the prison population will
exceed 14,000 by 2008, the state has em
barked bn an4ambitious — arid expensive
— prison construction program.
If the growth of the state budget is
limited without regard to demand for
services, costly voter-approved initiatives
or imbalances between revenue and
expenditure, rising costs in one part of the
budget must come from another.
Building new prisons, for example,
would have to be paid for with money
now going for education, human services
and employee pay and benefits.
Together with the Oregon AFL-CIO,
SEIU Local 503, OPEU is also assessing
several other potential pro-active
measures. One would require the state
government only to contract with vendors
who agree to certain standards of
employment, one that prohibits a public
employer from using public funds to >
influence the decision of employees about
union organizing, and another to increase
the minimum wage to $6.90 during 2003
and that it be increased annually to keep
up with inflation.
At the same time, the Union is keeping
an eye on some other harmful initiatives
that could wind Up on the ballot, includ
ing a measure contracting out the Oregon
Liquor Control Commission and another
of Lon Mabon's perennial measures
attacking gay and lesbian rights. •