OFF PAGE ONE
SCHOOL: Handful of students have already
obtained employment through their work placements
East Oregonian
Page 8A
Continued from 1A
School to Careers had a positive expe-
rience with the program. Students were
similarly effusive when surveyed, with
86 percent saying their program experi-
ence was positive, the other 14 percent
describing it as neutral.
Pendleton High School senior
Tommy Alberti was one of the partici-
pants in the School to Careers program,
where he did internships in the kitchens
at St. Anthony Hospital, Pendleton
Coffee Bean & Bistro and the Prodigal
Son Brewery & Pub.
When he moved from Connecticut
to Pendleton in 2009, Alberti described
himself as a picky eater before he
allowed himself to expand his palate.
“Basically, I couldn’t stop eating after
I started,” he said.
His love of food went from eating
it to cooking it, and he soon began to
dedicate himself to the high school’s
culinary program.
Through the School to Careers,
Alberti now works at Prodigal Son
four days a week for one to two hours
per day, preparing soup stalk and salad
dressing for the restaurant’s customers.
Although his high school culinary
classes have already armed him with
the fundamentals needed to do the job,
Alberti said the work placements taught
him how to adapt to each kitchen’s style
and needs.
Working with people he didn’t know
also forced him to hone his communica-
tion skills, he said.
After he graduates, Alberti plans
to attend Blue Mountain Community
College before transferring to the
Oregon Coast Culinary Institute in Coos
Bay.
Alberti said his longterm dream is
to work in a professional kitchen and
attend Johnson & Wales University, a
Providence, Rhode Island-based college
with a renowned culinary program.
With the state grant only lasting
through June, the original idea behind
the School to Careers program was for
the Pendleton School District to take
over operations at the start of the next
school year.
Speaking from Eastern Oregon Busi-
ness Source’s downtown office, Bower
said it became clear over the winter that
the School to Career program needed
another year or two as a public-private
partnership to succeed.
With the knowledge that the district’s
budget situation means it isn’t in a
position to fund the program, School
to Careers has already applied for eight
grants to keep the program running,
having already secured a $5,000 grant
from Umatilla County.
If they can raise enough money to
continue, Bower and van der Kamp have
ambitious plans for year two.
Besides expanding the number of
businesses and students that participate
in the program, the pair wants to create
an online system that will connect busi-
nesses and students more easily.
Longterm, Bower said School to
Careers is looking to demonstrate it can
successfully create a workforce pipeline
from Pendleton High School, which
could lead to business sponsorships.
“This could be largely, if not full, self
sustaining,” she said.
According to van der Kamp, a
handful of students have already
obtained employment through their
work placements.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at asierra@
eastoregonian.com or 541-966-0836.
UPGRADES: Project extends life of county properties
Continued from 1A
and other county officials.
The building also gets a large
conference room, he said, to make
county meetings more accessible to
residents there. And the county will
staff the place a few days each week.
Lonai lives in Milton-Freewater and
is the president of the Rotary Club there.
Murdock said Lonai has been working
there on Tuesdays. Another county
employee who lives in Milton-Free-
water also may end up working there
two days a week, Murdock said.
People in the Milton-Freewater
area who need the basic services the
county provides, Murdock said, such as
marriage licenses, can go there instead
of driving to Pendleton.
The Broadway site, often called
the Health Building, will be home to
veterans services, the watermaster,
community justice, drug and alcohol
services and as a sub-station for the
sheriff’s office.
Murdock said the project extends
the life of county properties and allows
the county to keep about $250,000 to
improve other buildings, including the
courthouse in Pendleton.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Umatilla County is renovating their facilities at two locations in
Milton-Freewater.
The county also is working on a
three-year preventative maintenance
plan, Murdock said, to keep up on all
the “non-glitzy stuff,” such as painting
and HVAC work. He said governments
often cut off funding maintenance in
tight budgets but that leaves bigger and
more costly repairs and rebuilds down
the line.
———
Contact Phil Wright at pwright@
eastoregonian.com or 541-966-0833.
Thursday, May 25, 2017
HEALTH: AHCA would
reduce federal deficits by
$119B over the next decade
Continued from 1A
unaffordable for those with
pre-existing conditions and
many seniors, and kicking
millions off of their health
insurance.”
Trump’s Health and
Human Services secretary,
Tom Price, assailed the
CBO for being inaccurate,
with the White House
issuing a similar critique.
“The CBO was wrong
when
they
analyzed
Obamacare’s effect on cost
and coverage,” Price said
of the agency’s report on
Obama’s law, “and they are
wrong again.”
Many
congressional
Republicans took a sharply
different tack, emphasizing
some of the report’s more
positive findings.
“This CBO report again
confirms that the American
Health Care Act achieves
our mission: lowering
premiums and lowering the
deficit. It is another positive
step toward keeping our
promise to repeal and
replace Obamacare,” said
House Speaker Paul Ryan,
R-Wis.
The analysis said the
House bill, the American
Health Care Act, would
reduce federal deficits
by $119 billion over the
next decade. The previous
version of the bill reduced
shortfalls by $150 billion.
Trump and Republicans
celebrated the House’s
narrow May 4 passage of the
bill in a Rose Garden cere-
mony after several embar-
rassing setbacks, even as
GOP senators signaled it had
little chance of becoming law
without significant changes.
In a late compromise,
House GOP conservatives
and moderates struck a deal
that would let states get
federal waivers to permit
insurers to charge higher
premiums to some people
in poor health, and to ignore
the standard set of benefits
required by Obama’s statute.
CBO said states adopting
those waivers could desta-
bilize coverage for people
with medical problems. The
agency estimated that about
one-sixth of the population
— more than 50 million
people — live in states that
would make substantial
changes under the waivers.
The
budget
office
projected that premiums in
those states would be lower
for healthy people than
under current law because
their coverage would be
narrower, but did not esti-
mate an amount.
For ill people in those
states, “it would become
more difficult” for seriously
ill people to buy insurance
“because their premiums
would continue to increase
rapidly,” the report said.
Benefits likely to be
excluded from required
coverage in some states
would include maternity,
mental health and substance
abuse services, the report
said. It said consumers’
out-of-pocket costs for those
services “could increase by
thousands of dollars in a
given year for the (patients)
who use those services.”
In states not getting
waivers, where it estimated
half the country lives,
average premiums would be
about 4 percent lower in 2026
than under Obama’s law, the
report said. For the one-third
of the nation where states
would modestly reduce
coverage
requirements,
average premiums would be
about 20 percent lower, the
analysts estimated.
The
budget
office
said average premiums
in those states would go
down because younger and
healthier people would buy
coverage and the policies
would cover less.
The report said that under
Obama’s law, the nation’s
health insurance market is
expected to remain “stable in
most areas” because federal
subsidies to millions of
consumers largely rise with
premiums.
At Brookdale communities
Dad hasn’t had a vegetable
in 6 months
your dad will have options
for healthy meals with
great company, because
both nutrition and social
connections are important.
time to call
(855) 562-0177
Call (855) 562-0177 today
to schedule your complimentary
lunch and visit.
We are available 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT,
Monday through Friday.
BROOKDALE SENIOR LIVING and BRINGING NEW LIFE TO SENIOR LIVING
are the registered trademarks of Brookdale Senior Living Inc.
©2017 Brookdale Senior Living Inc. All rights reserved.
32506 HermistonHerald
32506 HermistonHerald
Bringing New Life to Senior Living®
brookdale.com