OFF PAGE ONE
Thursday, May 16, 2019
East Oregonian
President: New leader gets started at Blue Mountain
Continued from Page A1
Bailey-Fougnier that he
wasn’t the cause of her tears.
“Come to find out her hus-
band had left her and cleaned
out the bank account,” he said.
“She didn’t have anything.”
A neighbor had urged her
to check out the community
college. At the time, PCC
had a program designed to
get displaced housewives
back into the workforce and
Bailey-Fougnier connected
her with the people running
the six-week program. The
woman continued on in col-
lege, eventually earning her
doctorate at Portland State.
Periodically, she returned to
Bailey-Fougnier to give him
enthusiastic updates.
He said the story illus-
trates the type of people who
attend community colleges.
“I love watching peo-
ple who value education and
don’t feel like it’s owed to
them,” he said. “Every lit-
tle step is a big win. I watch
them go from not believing in
themselves to having a huge
amount of confidence.”
In these early days at
BMCC, Bailey-Fougnier isn’t
spending much time in his
big, light-drenched office. He
has visited most of the BMCC
centers around Northeast
Oregon and had sit-downs
with community members,
employers, city and county
leaders, college employees
and students.
Wednesday brought more
of the same. He started the
day at the monthly 7 a.m. leg-
islative video session with
Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena.
From there, Bailey-Fougnier
moved to a morning-long
gathering of his vice presi-
dents and then attended two
other meetings before head-
ing to Salem for two days of
the Oregon Presidents Coun-
cil, a meeting of all 17 Ore-
gon community college pres-
idents. In Salem, he will also
meet past president Camille
Preus, who is now executive
director of the Oregon Com-
munity College Association.
“I’m in the firehose stage,”
he said. “There’s so much
coming at me. I’ve had a lot
of really good conversations.”
In describing his leader-
ship style, he said he prefers
a consensus form of decision
making if possible.
“Ultimately the buck stops
with me, but I want a cam-
pus environment where we
are transparent and open
with everyone from students
to faculty to administrators
when we’re talking about
issues,” Bailey-Fougnier said.
“I never want to leave people
out of decisions.”
The new president is liv-
ing in a trailer park while he
looks for a house, bunking
in his dad’s fifth-wheel. He
hopes to find a place before
his snowbird father picks up
the fifth-wheel and heads
south for the winter.
Bailey-Fougnier’s
part-
ner, Mark Mauceri, soon will
join him in Pendleton. Mau-
ceri has actually spent more
time in the city than Bai-
ley-Fougnier as he served as
project manager for the build
of the Wildhorse Resort golf
course in 1996 and 1997.
Bailey-Fougnier has all the
credentials necessary to excel
as the president of BMCC: a
master’s in education from
Wichita State University and
a doctorate in community
college leadership from Ore-
gon State University.
But he has one thing not
everyone has. Inside him
still lives that farm kid who
took a chance on community
college.
A7
Oregon to appeal
federal judge order
in murder case
PORTLAND (AP)
— The Oregon Depart-
ment of Justice will
appeal a federal judge’s
ruling that ordered the
release or a new trial
for Frank Gable, con-
victed of murder for the
1989 stabbing death of
Oregon’s prison chief
Michael Francke.
The Oregonian/Ore-
gonLive reports the state
filed its notice of appeal
Wednesday in U.S. Dis-
trict Court in Portland.
The state also filed a
motion to put the order
on hold while the appeal
is pending.
The state is inter-
ested “in continuing
custody and rehabili-
tation” of Gable, fears
that he’ll flee if he’s
released as he has a
life sentence hanging
over him, and doesn’t
want to waste time or
money preparing for a
new trial, if an appel-
late court overturns the
order, according to the
state’s motion.
“Nothing suggests
that, in the many years
since his convictions,
petitioner has developed
ties to any community
in Oregon that would act
as an incentive for him
to remain to await a pos-
sible retrial,” the state
Justice Department law-
yers wrote.
They also believe
Gable remains a danger
to the community.
Kicker: Economists predict that Oregon revenue will shatter expectations
Continued from Page A1
If the state collects 2%
more in personal income
taxes than what state econ-
omists predicted two years
ago, it triggers the kicker
rebate, which means that
extra money goes back to
Oregonians instead of being
spent by the state govern-
ment. The state smashed
through that threshold by
more than $1 billion.
Oregon taxpayers will
get back about $1.4 billion,
nearly double what econo-
mists predicted just a few
months ago.
That would be the larg-
est kicker in state history,
according to McMullen,
dwarfing the $463 million
kicker that taxpayers got
back in 2018.
Right now, McMullen
said, it looks like the median
kicker rebate will be about
$338. For the state’s top
earners, it will be close to
$14,000.
Republicans leapt to the
defense of the kicker, warn-
ing Democrats against dip-
ping into it.
“This
constitutionally
mandated check on exces-
sive taxation must be hon-
ored and not raided for
pet projects or to grow the
bureaucracy in Salem,” said
House Minority Leader Carl
Wilson, R-Grants Pass, in a
statement.
This is the last revenue
forecast before the June
30 deadline for lawmak-
ers to pass a state budget.
It’s important because it
tells lawmakers how much
money they can spend in the
next two years.
Legislative budget-writ-
ers have to produce a bal-
anced budget that doesn’t
spend more money than the
state takes in.
“This will be the forecast
that sets the stage for the
budget for ‘19 (to) ‘21,” said
Chris Allanach, legislative
revenue officer.
On Wednesday, key
Senate Democrats sig-
naled they will take a mea-
sured approach to what
Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaver-
ton, described as “a historic
windfall.”
“It should go to one of
the education stability fund,
rainy day fund, PERS fund
— whatever one of those
long-term funds,” Hass said.
“I think we’re going to sock
it away.”
Senate Majority Leader
Ginny Burdick, D-Port-
land, and Sen. Chuck Riley,
D-Hillsboro, said the eco-
nomic good times won’t last.
“Today’s forecast is great
news regarding the budget
situation, but history shows
us that the spike will not
last,” Burdick said in a state-
ment, adding, “We must
continue preparing our state
to weather an inevitable
economic downturn, and we
need to be doing that while
times are good.”
Riley remarked, “We all
know there’s going to be,
eventually — hopefully not
soon — a downturn. And
we’re going to need those
reserves. So I think every-
thing we can get, we should
put in reserves — every-
thing that we hadn’t planned
on.”
On the other side of the
Capitol and in the gover-
nor’s office, leading Demo-
crats expressed openness to
spending part of the wind-
fall on other priorities, such
as affordable housing.
Gov. Kate Brown said the
revenue boost “presents a
unique opportunity to pro-
tect Oregon’s future.” She
suggested using a “substan-
tial” amount of the money
to pay down Oregon’s pub-
lic pension debt while also
investing in housing, finan-
cial aid for college students,
Oregon’s troubled foster
care system and the Oregon
State Police.
“We need to approach
these unexpected resources
prudently,” House Speaker
Tina Kotek, D-Portland,
said in a brief statement.
“Any use of one-time funds
should be focused on areas
of significant need, such as
housing and pension debts.”
House Republicans cred-
ited President Donald Trump
and a package of tax reforms
a
Republican-controlled
Congress passed in 2017 for
the stronger-than-expected
revenue forecast.
Senate Republicans criti-
cized Democrats for voting
to levy a gross-receipts tax
on businesses, which would
collect well over $1 billion
per year, days before state
economists rolled out the
rosier-than-expected report.
“This serves as another
example of the major-
ity party continuing to tax
hardworking Oregonians to
fill the pockets of big gov-
ernment,” Senate Minority
Leader Herman Baertsch-
iger, Jr., R-Grants Pass, said
in a statement.
The money from the new
tax on businesses would be
earmarked for education.
Collections would be offset
somewhat by cuts to Ore-
gon’s personal income tax
rates and a proposed expan-
sion of the earned income
tax credit.
Baertschiger and his cau-
cus opposed House Bill
3427, which creates the tax
and allocates money for
education. It passed the Sen-
ate Monday, and Brown is
expected to sign it into law
in the coming days.
Separately, K-12 edu-
cation will also get a boost
because corporate income
tax collections have been
higher than what economists
expected. Under state law,
that $616 million surplus
gets “kicked” directly into
the state school fund, which
distributes state money to
Oregon’s local K-12 schools.
Sen. Brian Boquist,
R-Dallas, moved to have the
Senate revoke its approval
of HB 3427 on Wednes-
day, arguing that the reve-
nue forecast shows the state
already has enough money
and the new tax is unneces-
sary. The motion failed.
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