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A6 NEWS Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, March 13, 2019 Joint Ways and Means Committee presents $23.2 billion budget plan By Mark Miller Oregon Capital Bureau Oregon’s K-12 schools won’t feel pinched under a proposal unveiled by legis- lative budget-writers Thurs- day, but other government services throughout the state are likely to see cuts. The co-chairs of the Joint Ways and Means Commit- tee presented a $23.2 bil- lion budget plan. That rep- resents a 10 percent increase from the approved 2017-19 state budget, but not enough to maintain current service levels. Spending in nearly every area of the budget comes in below what state econo- mists say will be needed to keep service levels steady over the next two years. That would likely mean public employee layoffs, less grant money available to organi- zations and municipalities that rely on state support and other reductions as Oregon’s state government tightens its belt. In her $23.6 billion bud- get proposal released late last year, Gov. Kate Brown called for spending $8.87 billion in general and lottery revenues for the K-12 state school fund, the main source of money for school districts throughout Oregon. The leg- Oregon Capital Bureau The Joint Ways and Means Committee presented a budget 10 percent larger than in the current biennium but not enough to maintain current service levels. islators did likewise in their proposal. “We’re putting $668 mil- lion more into the current service level than the pre- vious biennium, which is a non-trivial sum of money,” Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hay- ward, D-Beaverton, said. “We’re doing the best we can with the available resources. We recognize that it’s not ideal.” State Rep. Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, vowed that lawmakers will be “working this entire session to try and find more money” for public education. Unlike Brown’s bud- get, the lawmakers’ pro- posal does not assume any tax increases will give bud- get-writers more money to spread around. Brown rec- ommended changing Ore- gon’s business tax code and ending payments to counties under the Gain Share pro- gram, lessening the need for state budget cuts. The cost of provid- ing public services tends to increase every year due to inflation, cost-of-living adjustments for employees, rising pension obligations and other economic factors. The Oregon Health Plan isn’t entirely spared from cuts the way that the state schools fund is, but Steiner Hayward, who is a prac- ticing physician, said the co-chairs are proposing no cuts to patient services. “There may be some areas of savings for admin- istration, but we will not be cutting eligibility or bene- fits for any Oregonian who receives services or is eli- gible for services through OHP,” Steiner Hayward said. Steiner Hayward was one of two senators named to co-chair Ways and Means for this session. State Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scap- poose, said the three co-chairs have worked well together, and she suggested that their geographic diver- sity helped guide their bud- get proposal. All are from western Oregon, but John- son represents a mostly rural district northwest of Port- land, Steiner Hayward rep- resents an urban district on Portland’s Westside and Rayfield represents part of the mid-Willamette Valley. “We all brought our own ability to project the con- cerns of all of Oregon into this budget,” Johnson said. Rayfield said the com- mittee’s job is to balance the cost of government services with the available resources. “This is not a perfect bud- get,” he said. “There will be folks who are not happy with this budget.” The Senate Republican leader isn’t one of those folks. “For the first time in my career in the Senate, it is refreshing to get a glimpse at a budget framework that is fiscally responsible and will leave a healthy end- ing balance,” said state Sen. Herman Baertschiger Jr., R-Grants Pass, in a state- ment released shortly after the budget was unveiled Thursday. Johnson, Rayfield and Steiner Hayward said keep- ing Oregon financially sta- ble is one of their main objectives. They want to avoid deeper cuts in the coming decade, especially if the state’s economy slows down. “This takes a significant step toward creating sustain- able budgets in the future,” Rayfield said. The Legislature is required to approve a bal- anced budget for the next biennium by the end of June. With both the governor’s budget proposal and the Ways and Means co-chairs’ plan now on the table, the state’s leaders have until the end of the legislative session to hammer out an agreement. Legislature’s $1.1M sexual harassment settlement will divert funds budgeted for other purposes By Claire Withycombe, Aubrey Wieber and Mark Miller Oregon Capital Bureau In the next month, the Legislature will write a check for $1.1 million to finish its settlement of sex- ual harassment claims at the Capitol. But it won’t be legislators or employees accused of the misconduct who have to pay. The money comes from taxpayers. The settlement between the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and the Leg- islature was announced Tuesday. Nine victims will receive up to $415,000 each. The Legislature will pay for the settlement using extra money initially budgeted for other purposes, according to Legislative Fiscal Officer Ken Rocco. The Legislative Assem- bly, which is part of the over- all legislative branch of state government, has spent about 70 percent of its $41 mil- lion budget and is 80 percent of the way through its cur- rent two-year budget cycle, which ends June 30. The Legislature gets nearly all of its money from the state’s general fund, which is paid by taxpayers, according to state records. The legislative branch has spent less than expected on personnel, Rocco said. When the economy is doing as well as it is now, fewer people want the part-time, limited-duration jobs avail- able during the session. Under the settlement, the Legislature will cut the check to the state labor bureau within 30 days. Then the labor bureau will distribute the money to the victims of harassment. The Legislature will pay nearly $1.1 million in non-economic damages to eight victims, about $26,000 in legal fees to a state sena- tor who was harassed, and $200,000 to the labor bureau for attorneys’ fees and out of pocket expenses. The bureau’s investiga- tion, released Jan. 3, focused largely on the actions of for- mer state Sen. Jeff Kruse, R-Roseburg, who resigned a year ago, although the behavior of three lawmakers was called out in the report. But it’s not clear which lawmakers’ actions led to settlement money for which victims. A spokesman for the labor bureau declined to disclose that information Wednesday. The settlement caps alle- gations dating back to Octo- ber 2017, when Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, pub- licly accused Kruse of inap- propriate behavior. Internal investigations by the Legislature were fol- lowed by the labor bureau’s investigation and resulting complaint in January against legislative leaders. Kruse was named as a respondent in that com- plaint, but other legislators were not. Private talks in recent weeks between the labor bureau and legislative lead- ers produced the settlement announced this week. The labor bureau reached out to Kruse to participate in the conciliation process but he didn’t respond, a spokes- man for BOLI said. The settlement, which was signed by Senate Presi- dent Peter Courtney, Speaker of the House Tina Kotek and Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, doesn’t say specif- ically whether the victims can separately pursue their abusers. A separate agreement protects the Legislature from future legal claims from the victims who were paid settlements. Kotek’s office was con- sidering a request Thurs- day from the Oregon Capi- tal Bureau for access to that agreement. An attorney for two interns who were harassed by Kruse said her clients don’t plan to sue the former state senator. “At this time, my cli- ents do not intend to pur- sue any rights that may still exist against Jeff Kruse in his individual capacity after their currently filed case is dismissed,” Charese Rohny said in an email Thursday. The settlement calls for the Legislature to adopt rec- ommendations from an Ore- gon Law Commission work group formed to tackle sex- ual harassment in the Capi- tol. House Bill 2859 would create a confidential chan- nel for lawmakers, lobby- ists, and state employees and contractors to report harass- ment in the Capitol. Those complaints would go through a proposed Leg- islative Equity Office and could be excluded from pub- lic disclosure. HB 2859 and Senate Bill 744, which creates the Equity Office, received a mixed reception at a Feb. 6 public hearing. Gelser read anony- mous testimony from two women who complained of harassment, who urged lawmakers to abandon the idea of restricting disclo- sure of information about harassment. One of Gelser’s staffers also testified, telling mem- bers of the Capitol Culture Committee, “By trying to complicate the process, you are discouraging survivors from coming forward.” A spokesman for Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, who co-chairs the com- mittee, confirmed Thurs- day that leadership intends to move forward with those bills, although they have yet to be scheduled for a vote in committee. Meantime, Gelser, Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, and Rep. Karin Power, D-Mil- waukie have proposed leg- islation to prohibit using public money or campaign money as “hush money” for victims of sexual harass- ment and abuse who agree not to publicly disclose their allegations. Testimony on Senate Bill 478 explained the legisla- tion would end the practice of using public money or campaign money to coerce someone to sign a nondis- closure agreement. Gelser testified the issue was transparency. Someone running for office shouldn’t use that money to arrange to buy a victim’s silence, she said. Looking ahead, Gelser said in an interview that she hopes the settlement will signal victims of harassment that they can come forward and “seek remedy.” But beyond that, she wants the environment in the Capitol to change. “I just think it’s important that we don’t wash our hands of this now and say, ‘We wrote a check, it’s all over,’” Gelser said. “We need a complete transformation of our culture. And that’s a lot more than words, and it’s a lot more than policies.” Legislator backs study of extending commuter rail from Wilsonville to Salem By Mark Miller Oregon Capital Bureau Ten years ago, the West- side Express Service began running between Beaverton and Wilsonville. State Rep. Mitch Green- lick hopes that in another 15 years it will run south to Ore- gon’s capital city. House Bill 2219 would commission a 17-member task force to study the con- cept of extending WES com- muter rail to Salem, deter- mining whether it would be feasible or beneficial. The bill received an initial pub- lic hearing before the Legis- lature’s Joint Transportation Committee on March 4. No committee vote has yet been scheduled to advance the legislation. “It would make WES much more viable,” Green- lick said before the hearing. “I think WES would be much more effective if it had the riders that would come from … the north Salem area.” WES is part of the TriMet system, which treats bus, light rail and commuter rail fares as interchangeable. The typical fare is $2.50 for two and a half hours, or $5 for a full day. Like nearly all commuter rail systems, WES operates at a loss, meaning a trip costs more than what the rider pays for it. An average commuter trip costs TriMet $18.14. That makes WES consider- ably more expensive to oper- ate, relative to the number of riders, than TriMet’s bus and light rail services. MAX’s average operating cost per ride is $2.95. Michael B. DesJardin Dentistry, PC Preventive, Restorative & Endodontics New Patients Welcome! Pamplin Media Group A TriMet WES train arrives at the Beaverton Transit Center. A bill introduced in the Legislature could extend WES trains south to Salem. Ridership on WES has also been decreasing year over year, which TriMet spokeswoman Roberta Alt- stadt attributes to business closures along the commuter route. Last fiscal year, WES provided 265,668 rides — on average, 5,109 trips per week. “Those who do ride WES often call it the best kept secret as it provides a quick, reliable and comfortable ride between Wilsonville and Beaverton,” Altstadt said. A 2010 state study con- cluded that extending WES to Salem was “technically feasi- ble,” but it would be a com- plex project that would cost up to $387 million to build. The amount TriMet must spend for WES operations every year would likely tri- ple, the study added. It made no recommendation on how to proceed, and the idea got little further public attention. Greenlick is restarting the conversation. Shelley Snow, Oregon Department of Transporta- tion spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement, “We understand the goal of the bill’s sponsor and should the bill pass, we look forward to participating in the task force and/or in any other way that would be helpful.” Express transit between Wilsonville and Salem exists today in the form of bus line 1X, which runs as a partner- ship between Wilsonville’s bus service SMART and Salem-area transit operator Cherriots. Cherriots did not respond to a request for comment, but SMART transit direc- tor Dwight Brashear praised Greenlick’s bill at Monday’s committee hearing. “I think this is an opportu- nity for us to study something that will benefit future gen- erations to come,” Brashear testified. SMART and Cherriots track ridership for all of their routes, including bus line 1X. Last fiscal year, the route averaged 1,386 boardings per week, with SMART serving the majority of them. Officials from Beaverton and Wilsonville testified in favor of Greenlick’s bill. In a letter of support, Wilson- ville Mayor Tim Knapp sug- gested SMART could “re-de- ploy assets” to cover other unserviced areas if WES was extended to Salem. Officials in Tigard and Tualatin are watching as well. Sherilyn Lombos, Tualatin city manager, said her City Council supports extending WES. “Anything that adds ser- vice to Tualatin, we’re inter- ested in,” Lombos said. Interstate 5 runs through Tualatin and Wilsonville, and during peak commute hours, the freeway can become choked with vehicles. Lom- bos and Knapp see a WES extension as potential con- gestion relief. A TTENTION G RANT 208 NW Canton John Day 541-575-2725 mbddental@live.com michaelbdesjardinmd.com 98769 C OUNTY V ETERANS : Did you know a service-connected disabled veteran is entitled to FREE use of Oregon State Parks? See your Grant County Veteran Services Katee Hoffman Officer today for more information. Call 541-620-8057 for an appointment 530 E. Main, Ste. 5, John Day, OR 98782 108830
