A8 The BulleTin • Thursday, May 27, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Consider new kind
of housing for Bend
F
or a starting teacher or a starting police officer, finding
housing for a family in Bend can be too pricey. Single
people can find they don’t want roommates — they need
them to afford to live in town.
Not everybody that wants to live
in Bend has to live in Bend. But if
the city wants to continue to attract
the best talent, it needs to continue
to hunt for solutions.
What if the city of Bend could
partner with businesses to help pro-
vide housing for employees? Where
housing pressure is acute, commu-
nities are exploring those options
and others. You’d expect it, perhaps
in Silicon Valley, in Aspen, in New
York City. But it’s happening all
around the country.
The government doesn’t have to
be involved. If Bend, though, could
leverage federal dollars it would
open up a lot of possibilities. City
staff told us it is investigating what
might be allowed. So, it might not
happen. It wouldn’t be because of
lack of trying.
In some places, businesses have
stepped up. They help with financing
for apartments. For instance in Tilla-
mook, Tillamook Creamery pledged
to fill some apartments to help se-
cure financing for a new apartment
building. The city of Aspen and Pit-
kin County in Colorado has long had
lotteries for employee housing in that
community. In California, voters in
the San Mateo School District passed
a bond to build a 100-plus-unit apart-
ment complex for school faculty and
staff. And of course, much closer to
home are the efforts in Sunriver to
build employee housing for Sunriver
Oregon, as a whole, does
not do well in some national
rankings of affordable housing.
It has one of the lowest rates of
housing available for people
who are extremely low income,
according to the National Low
Income Housing Coalition. And
unfortunately, low-income renters
are also disproportionately
people of color.
Resort.
Oregon, as a whole, does not do
well in some national rankings of
affordable housing. It has one of
the lowest rates of housing available
for people who are extremely low
income, according to the National
Low Income Housing Coalition.
And unfortunately, low-income
renters are also disproportionately
people of color.
It is to be expected in Bend or any
place where people flock to live that
a premium will be paid to live here.
But Bend should not just concede
that teachers, firefighters, nurses,
police officers and so many other
employees don’t deserve to live here
as well as work here.
State goes after more taxes
when it has a bulging budget
T
he state of Oregon’s revenue
picture is nothing short of
stunning. It could be bulging
with $1.8 billion more in its two-
year budget than it had expected in
February. Income taxes surged.
The state budget picture was al-
ready looking a rosy shade of rosy
before the most recent budget pro-
jection. The $2.6 billion from the
American Rescue Plan Act was go-
ing to fill what had been anticipated
to be a $1.3 billion budget gap.
Then earlier this week, in the Sen-
ate Committee on Finance and Rev-
enue, a proposed amendment was
dropped that was no less stunning. It
aimed to grab more revenue. From
businesses. When Congress did not
intend the money to be taxed.
Which legislator or legislators
proposed is not disclosed on the
amendment. That is not stunning.
It’s an all too common practice of
legislative secrecy, preventing voters
from being able to hold legislators
accountable.
The amendment proposes to tax
forgiven Paycheck Protection Act
loans. The amendment would ex-
empt the first $100,000 in loan for-
giveness. Full disclosure: The Bulle-
tin benefitted from a PPP loan.
Remember, Congress passed the
PPP to help businesses in desper-
ate pandemic times. It helped pre-
vent the country from dipping into
a horrible recession. And despite
that help, many businesses still went
under. Many employees were let
go. Now the state of Oregon plans
to go after those dollars even when
the state budget is bulging with bil-
lions? Congress did not intend that
the PPP loans would be taxed as
income when they were used as in-
tended. The money is not needed by
the state. Do legislators need more
reason than that to let the amend-
ment die?
Editorials reflect the views of The Bulletin’s editorial board, Publisher Heidi Wright, Editor
Gerry O’Brien and Editorial Page Editor Richard Coe. They are written by Richard Coe.
Managing conservation in the
Upper Deschutes has its complexities
BY BRIDGET MORAN
W
ith a river that serves as
the backbone of both our
human communities and
wildlife species, sustainable water
management is a balancing act that
has taken years to achieve in the De-
schutes River Basin. Years of research
and collaboration among managers,
biologists, hydrologists, and other ex-
perts have gone into the effort to en-
sure critical water needs are met for
Central Oregonians and our wildlife.
Recent articles and discussion in The
Bulletin have debated these issues,
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
would like to highlight our perspec-
tives regarding the complexities of wa-
ter management in the basin.
One of the species dependent on
the Deschutes River, the Oregon spot-
ted frog, has been central to the Ser-
vice’s conservation work in the basin
since it was listed as threatened under
the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in
2014. More than half of critical hab-
itat designated for the species occurs
within the Deschutes River Basin, un-
derscoring the importance of the area
to conservation and recovery efforts.
An entirely aquatic species, spotted
frogs require water year-round for all
stages of their life history, including
breeding, rearing, and overwintering.
Ensuring the life history needs of
spotted frogs are met in the Deschutes
River, which has been heavily altered
from a century of water management,
is challenging. In particular, the highly
regulated stretch from Wickiup Dam
downstream to Bend is at the heart
GUEST COLUMN
of a long-standing conservation issue
surrounding the extreme seasonal
flow changes that are inherent to irri-
gation water management.
The legacy of storage and release
operations has altered the physical
structure of the river, the extent of
surrounding habitats, and the behav-
ior of spotted frogs as they move be-
tween seasonal habitats. Dams in the
upper basin store water through win-
ter for irrigation in summer, leading
to winter flows insufficient to inun-
date the slough and wetland habitats
that extend high onto the floodplain
due to decades of artificially high
summer flows. Even historical (pre-
dam) flows now would fail to reach
floodplain habitats where they exist
today and could no longer support
spotted frogs.
The recently approved Deschutes
Basin Habitat Conservation Plan
(HCP) addresses water management
to better support spotted frogs and
other ESA-listed species. The HCP
outlines conservation measures that
modify the timing, volume, and du-
ration of irrigation releases to align
with life history needs of spotted frogs
while continuing to deliver water to
central Oregonians consistent with
Oregon water law.
In general under the HCP, flows
(1) increase in April to support spot-
ted frog breeding by raising water
levels to these adjacent habitats, (2)
are managed within specific param-
eters during spotted frog rearing
(April-August), and (3) are sustained
in-stream later in the season to help
spotted frogs move into overwinter-
ing habitats without getting stranded.
While frogs might benefit biologically
from higher flows during certain life
stages, these flow increases would
come at a cost to other life stages at
other times of year because the upper
basin has a finite capacity of water. In
short, while many can suggest the best
flows for frogs, no single flow volume
really tells the story of what is best for
spotted frogs overall.
To ensure our recovery efforts are
well-informed, the Service collaborates
with other experts from the U.S. Geo-
logical Survey, U.S. Forest Service, Or-
egon Department of Fish and Wildlife,
and many others to gather data, moni-
tor biological activity, provide guidance
on water management decisions, and a
host of other activities.
While there are varied opinions on
how to manage the river, our experts
rely on the best available biological and
hydrological data to inform the Ser-
vice’s decisions, including our recent
finding that the HCP meets applicable
requirements under the ESA. We value
the community’s interest, welcome
your engagement, and hope that you
continue to partner with us to help the
spotted frog continue its conservation
journey toward recovery.
For more information about the
Deschutes HCP, go to tinyurl.com/
DeschutesHCP.
e e
Bridget Moran is Bend Field Supervisor for the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
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There’s a massive child care worker shortage; the market can’t fix it
BY ELLIOT HASPEL
Special to The Washington Post
P
arents of young children have
had a rough pandemic, fac-
ing down closed playgrounds,
closed pools and closed child care
centers. While states have largely
opened up, these parents now face a
knock-on crisis: Child care programs
are contending with massive and un-
precedented staffing shortages, lead-
ing to fewer spots and long waiting
lists. The rotten seed of America’s dis-
investment in child care has finally
sprouted, and without a new, perma-
nent source of public funding, the sec-
tor is likely to crash and pull working
families down with it.
Child care programs have long
struggled with staffing because wages
are so low: The national median is
$11.65 an hour, and around half of
programs don’t offer health insurance
benefits. The current moment is an
order of magnitude worse. For much
of the pandemic, child care programs
were struggling with under-enroll-
ment as parents worked remotely
or stayed away for fear of their child
bringing COVID home. Now, pro-
grams are struggling to handle a surge
in demand. Since day cares must fol-
low mandated child-to-adult ratios, a
lack of staff quite simply means they
must serve fewer children.
The problem cuts across geography
and ideology; waiting list stories have
cropped up from Ohio to Texas, and
it was recently reported that one of ru-
ral Iowa’s few large centers may have to
close temporarily due to staffing chal-
lenges. Kim Hulcher, executive director
of the Virginia Child Care Association,
wrote in an email that “critical staffing
shortages” have led several of her mem-
bers to cap enrollment and stop accept-
ing parent applications altogether.
The impact isn’t restricted to families
with children below age 6; many child-
care programs also provide before- and
after-school care to elementary-aged
children. When Ann Arbor Public
Schools discontinued district-affiliated
child-care services for the upcoming
school year, the primary reason given
was staffing shortages.
Unlike a short-staffed restaurant
that may need to curtail operating
hours or menu options, child care
programs are cultivating the academic
and socioemotional foundations of a
generation; forcing them into a lurch
is frankly dangerous. Children thrive
on consistent, reliable relationships,
and effectively providing care and
education for a group of 3-year-olds
requires skill. Child care is about the
last sector in which you want to see
high churn and programs scraping for
warm bodies. Yet here we are.
There is only one solution: public
investment. Child care programs don’t
obey the classic rules of supply and de-
mand; many experts consider the sec-
tor a failed market. Parents are already
tapped out, but the obscene prices
they pay don’t come close to covering
the true cost of care in such a person-
nel-heavy enterprise. Only programs
serving the most affluent can reason-
ably charge more to boost wages.
In one important way, child care mir-
rors the rest of the economy: Raising
compensation works. A study of child-
care teacher turnover in Louisiana in
the journal Educational Evaluation
and Policy Analysis, found more than
44 percent of teachers in private child-
care programs leave every year, nearly
all exiting the profession altogether (by
comparison, about 16 percent of K-12
teachers leave each year, half just going
to a different school). However, for the
better paid Head Start teachers and the
yet-better paid public preschool teach-
ers, turnover was only around a third
and a quarter, respectively.
President Joe Biden’s American
Families Plan (AFP) sets a goal of a $15
minimum wage for child care practi-
tioners, an improvement that would
however return the industry to its
pre-pandemic fragility. The AFP also
states those with similar qualifications
to kindergarten teachers would achieve
pay parity, although this wades into an
ongoing debate about credentialing for
child care educators and how to honor
the experience and expertise of a work-
force substantially made up of older
women of color.
An alternative is the adoption of
publicly supported sectoral wage scales.
Several states have developed such
scales, although none are fully imple-
mented. For instance, a recently pro-
posed scale in Minnesota would ensure
entry-level classroom support roles —
requiring a 120-hour certificate — start
at $18.20 per hour, moving up from
there toward parity with K-12 teachers.
More philosophically, the nation
needs to ask itself a question: Do we re-
ally want programs caring for toddlers
and their rapidly developing brains to
be competing for staff with fast food
joints and big box stores (worthy of a
decent wage as those employees are)?
Do we want market forces determining
whether parents have viable, quality
options for their care/work arrange-
ments? There is a reason we don’t ex-
pose fire departments or public schools
to the invisible, raw hand of capitalism;
child care programs are equally essen-
tial to the functioning of society and
the development of children.
e e
Elliot Haspel is the program officer for education
policy and research at the Robins Foundation in
Richmond, Virginia.