WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2018
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
LOCAL
Oregon Business
Plan gathering
feedback for 2019
legislative session
By JADE MCDOWELL
STAFF WRITER
When the 2019 legisla-
tive session convenes, Ore-
gon’s business community
plans to be ready with leg-
islation and budget rec-
ommendations to address
Oregon’s fiscal problems.
Tackling rising costs
of the Public Employee
Retirement System is on
the top of the list.
On Friday, representa-
tives of the Oregon Busi-
ness Council and Oregon
Business & Industry vis-
ited Hermiston, where they
convened a roundtable dis-
cussion with area busi-
ness and government lead-
ers. The title was “Facing
Oregon’s Fiscal Crisis”
and the goal was to gather
feedback for a partnership
known as the Oregon Busi-
ness Plan, which will use
that to create a series of
proposals for the 2019 leg-
islative session.
Ginny Lang, acting vice
president of OBI, told the
group that the initiative
would be a mixture of rec-
ommendations for cost
containment, changes to
revenue and new invest-
ments in areas such as edu-
cation that can help grow
the economy.
“We can’t do it alone,”
she said. “Every one of you
will be important ... this is
a crisis and we need to get
started on getting it fixed
now.”
Jeremy Rogers, vice
president of OBC, said
despite “very strong rev-
enue growth” in the state,
expenditures are outpac-
ing revenues, creating
about a $1 billion shortfall
per biennium. The larg-
est problem he pointed to
was PERS, which has been
rapidly increasing oper-
ational costs for govern-
ment entities. While the
courts have made it clear
that current retirees’ pen-
sions are off-limits, Rog-
ers said the state needed to
look at what reforms can
be implemented to reduce
the PERS burden in other
ways. Other drains on Ore-
gon’s budget the Oregon
Business Plan is looking at
include the increasing costs
of Medicaid and increasing
costs for public employee
health care plans.
The group is also inter-
ested in tax reform. Lang
said they “learned a lot
from Measure 97” about
looking at the entire tax
system instead of just try-
ing to introduce a new
idea, like a gross receipts
tax,
without
making
adjustments to other reve-
nue sources first.
“We have to take a step
back and look at the whole
tax system,” she said,
“to look at how to shift
it a little to make it more
sustainable.”
One idea she gave was
getting rid of the kicker,
which
sends
money
directly back to the tax-
payers when state reve-
nue overperforms what
state economists had pre-
dicted. But she said that
was a difficult topic that
would probably have to be
discussed further down the
road than 2019.
Rogers said moving
forward, the Oregon Busi-
ness Plan needs to have
four different strategies
in mind based on whether
Kate Brown or Knute Bue-
hler will be governor next
year and whether Demo-
crats will have a superma-
jority in the legislature.
Local leaders had some
ideas of their own for help-
ing fix Oregon’s fiscal
issues.
Tamra Mabbot, city
of Umatilla community
development director, said
regulatory reform was
a small thing that could
make a big difference to a
lot of cities that have eco-
nomic development proj-
ects held up by state reg-
ulations. She said after the
city had an idea for recy-
cling clean water from a
developer into irrigation
water it took two years to
get a permit from the state.
Things like that are partly
a regulatory problem, she
said, but there is also a
problem with state agen-
cies not being willing to
take a risk on funding proj-
ects that are “outside the
box.”
Kim Puzey, general
manager of the Port of
Umatilla, said the port
had reduced its PERS bur-
den over the years through
attrition, as PERS employ-
ees left and the port
replaced them with con-
tract employees who had
a different set of benefits
instead.
“To a degree you can
get yourselves out from
under that,” he said.
J.R. Cook, director
of the Northeast Oregon
Water Association, said he
noticed that the “Salem
culture” was always to
ask for more employees
instead of looking at how
the department or office
can be more efficient with
the resources they have.
“I think these types of
crises lead to the ability
to have those discussions
about staffing,” he said.
Mark Morgan, assistant
city manager for the city of
Hermiston, said unfunded
mandates from the state
were a big problem for
local government juris-
dictions. He also pointed
out that in talking about
investments into growing
Oregon’s economy Rog-
ers and Lang had mostly
mentioned education ini-
tiatives. Things like mak-
ing more water available
for farmers can also grow
the economy, he said.
The Oregon Business
Plan group plans to do
more roundtables around
the state and unveil a set of
proposals at its summit on
December 3.
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL
Highland Hills Elementary School is being eyed by the Hermiston School District’s facilities committee for replacement in a
future bond.
Creative suggestions for school facilities
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
STAFF WRITER
Though they haven’t
made any decisions yet, the
Hermiston School District
has heard from community
members: To pass a new
bond, they’re going to have
to think differently.
About 20 people gath-
ered Thursday night at the
first public meeting held by
the facility planning com-
mittee, made up of com-
munity members, school
board members and dis-
trict administrators. In Jan-
uary, the group began study-
ing building issues facing
the district, such as enroll-
ment and capacity, school
safety, and the condition of
facilities.
The committee is look-
ing at potential projects at
four schools: new build-
ings for Rocky Heights and
Highland Hills elemen-
tary schools, and making
upgrades at Sandstone Mid-
dle School and Hermiston
High School.
The committee said they
hope input from the public
will inform the next bond
proposal.
Committee
members
said they had spent the past
few months reviewing the
problems with the previous
bond, which failed in May
2017.
That $104 million bond
proposed new buildings for
Rocky Heights and High-
land Hills, a new elemen-
tary school and significant
upgrades and expansions to
the high school.
District
Operations
Director Brad Wayland
said voters did not want to
see taxes increase, but were
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the school would have been
built for older students.
Another suggested that
the district could build two-
story elementary schools.
Wayland said the district
hopes to keep elementary
school populations around
600.
But, as one audience
member noted, elementary
schools are already pushing
that limit.
“What’s the point of
building a school that’s
already past capacity by the
time it’s built?” he asked.
Others said they wanted
to see better communica-
tion from the district about
the bond.
The Facilities Plan-
ning Committee is holding
another meeting, in Span-
ish, Thursday at Armand
Larive Middle School at
6:30 p.m.
Local man shot, police seek Boardman man
The 27-year-old
victim is expected
to recover
A Hermiston man was
shot Saturday evening but is
expected to recover from his
injuries.
Carlos Ramirez, 27, was
taken to Good Shepherd
Medical Center in a private
vehicle after he was injured.
Hermiston Police Depart-
ment Capt. Travis Eynon
said someone called 911 to
report a shooting at 9:47 p.m.
and when officers arrived at
220 E Beebe Ave. in Herm-
iston they were informed
the victim had already been
taken to the hospital.
He said the incident took
place in the back yard of a
residence but he could not
yet release more information
about what led up to it.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO FROM
HERMISTON POLICE DEPARTMENT
Alex Ahumada is a person
of interest in a shooting that
happened Saturday night in
Hermiston.
No one has been taken
into custody, but Eynon
said Monday afternoon that
police are searching for Alex
Ahumada, 33, of Boardman,
who is described as a person
of interest.
If members of the pub-
lic know where Ahumada
is they are asked to call law
enforcement and not try to
detain him, as he could be
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From 2005 to 2012, Ahu-
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injured person (hit and run).
In a Facebook post,
Eynon described the shoot-
ing as “an isolated incident”
that “does not appear to be a
random act.”
He said Ahumada and
Ramirez are well-known to
each other.
Umatilla County Sher-
iff’s Office and Oregon
State Police also assisted
at the scene, and the inci-
dent continues to be under
investigation.
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also unsure that they wanted
to vote for the specific proj-
ects the bond would have
addressed. Many also said
they felt there was a lack
of communication from the
district.
Citizens
present
at
Thursday’s meeting said
they understood the need
to rebuild both elementary
schools, but asked the dis-
trict to think about other
options.
“What about using the
middle school as an elemen-
tary school, and building a
new middle school?” Asked
one audience member, not-
ing that the middle school
could hold more students.
“When you have no money,
you have to get creative.”
Wayland said they had
considered that option, but
doing so would create more
issues — especially because
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