Schools cheer tax measure success

Next up: Lawmakers look for ways to alter budget kicker law in special session

By Steve Law And Geoff Pursinger

The Times, Jan 28, 2010 (5 Reader comments)

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Tigard-Tualatin School District officials are celebrating following Tuesday night’s passage of measure’s 66 and 67, which raised income and corporate taxes to help stave off $727 million in cuts to public services like schools and public safety.

“I was extremely relieved,” said Jill Zurschmeide, school board chair. “We budgeted for this year more conservatively because we feared that those measures would not pass.”

During Tuesday’s special election, Washington County voters approved Ballot Measure 66 by 53 percent to 47 percent. They also adopted Measure 67 by the same margin.

When the Oregon Department of Education allocated $6 billion to k-12 education for the 2009-11 school years, Tigard-Tualatin decided to budget at a lower funding level instead, just in case the measures failed, and pulled heavily from reserve funds to help the year along, to the tune of about $4 million.

“We were very fortunate because we had the reserves to draw from, we could actually make that gamble,” said Zurschmeide.

Now that the measures have passed, the district will see an extra $6.6 million over the next two years. And some of the programs cut in the past year could see a comeback.

“We won’t be able to add back all of the programs that we had to cut,” said district Superintendent Rob Saxton, “but we’ll be able to add back quite a bit.”

Zurschmeide said that the approval of the two tax measures spoke volumes about how Oregonians feel about education. “During the hard times, to vote for a tax increase, it says that schools are important. I’m very proud of our state. It was not an easy decision.”

Other local leaders didn’t see Tuesday’s results in the same light.

Linda Moholt, the CEO of the Tualatin Chamber of Commerce, said she worried about the business climate now that higher taxes had been passed.

“I think that long-term, it is not only a deterrent to keeping businesses, but also detracts from attracting potential business,” she said. “Businesses have said there will be cuts.”

Moholt said that the chamber supported more wide-ranging tax reform in Oregon, and was working with its political affairs committee to address that issue.

“We didn’t think that the solution (the tax measures) addresses the key issue,” she said. “Which is that the economy is cyclical.”

Kicker reform?

Lawmakers return to Salem next week to address the sour economy, stubborn unemployment, and – if they have the political stomach – reform the state’s “kicker” law that many blame for Oregon’s unstable state finances.

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