558 N. Main St., Prineville, OR 97754 | (541) 447-6205
Tomorrow morning, the Oregon Legislature will convene for their 5-week short session—and according to Senator Doug Whitsett (D-28), the session is going to be all about filling budget holes.
“There were significant assumptions at the end of the 2011 sessions that did not pan out,” commented Whitsett about the work in the upcoming session.
He said that the state economist anticipated that the Oregon revenue would go up by approximately $130 million.
“Only six months into the biennium, it has already gone down $170 million, which leaves a $300 million gap,” added Whitsett.
There were other shortfalls from forecasts, as well. House Bill 3650--the Transformation Bill, was supposed to save $239 million, but has already been reduced to $60 million, which leaves a $180 million hole. There is also a deficit from the $150 million anticipated savings in long-term care for the elderly and $100 million in public safety that hasn’t materialized.
“The point being, there is a chunk of change that has to be concerning,” said Whitsett. “State revenue has been falling against predictions for about three-and-one-half years now. In the last two years, there has actually been a reduction in the amount of funding available—not against the prediction, but actually a reduction in the amount of revenue that has come into the general fund and the lottery fund.” Whitsett noted that they will have to address a significant and total budget shortfall.
“We are either going to do that by across-the-board reductions, or to do the real hard work.”
He said this consists of prioritizing between what is more or less important, and allocating funds accordingly.
The top three areas in front and center are education, public safety, and human services.
“I think pretty much everyone in the building wants to hold education harmless to the point of where they are at the current time,” said Whitsett. “I think the focus is going to be, where do we find savings in public safety and human services to make up that kind of hole?”
He explained that one of the issues is that a lot of the money appropriated by human services is also matched by federal money. If they cut a dollar into some human services program, they cut two more with federal money.
One way Whitsett believes that they could address the problem is in the Office of Health Administration and the Department of Human Services. He noted that if they looked at eliminating as many as 1,000 middle-level managerial or supervisory positions, they would save a significant amount of money.
“We think that it may run as well or better without them, and it would save upwards of $100 million,” said Whitsett. “There is obviously going to be some push-back from that.”
Another issue on the table is in public safety. He said there is a major debate about how they reduce the costs in this area. On one side of the issue, they are thinking about winding down and partially closing down prisons and turning people loose to reduce the cost.
“From my perspective, we need to look at why Oregon has a cost of almost 50 percent higher per inmate than Idaho does,” pointed out Whitsett.
He said that the cost per day per inmate in Idaho is $62. The cost in Oregon is $94 per day. The difference between the two in two years amounts to approximately $325 million. He also brought up costs of youth incarcerated in the Oregon Youth Authority, and money which could possibly be saved in this area.
According to Whitsett, there are two sides to the budget issue. On one side, there is the status quo and hoping things get better.
“The side that I’m on, we need to start finding out what are our cost drivers, and what are our priorities. We need to reduce costs and eliminate programs that people can agree on that are of less priority.”
Whitsett said that is it going to be a whirlwind session.
“I am afraid that it’s going to move so fast and with such a short schedule that it’s going to be difficult for people outside the capitol building itself to have much input.”
