Oregon’s evenly divided House (30 D’s & 30 R’s) has begun its 2011 Legislative Session with a co-governance model—Co- Speakers, Co-Committee Chairs and equal numbers on every committee.

The most crucial issue facing this Legislature will be balancing the State Budget. We are in a financial vise--a time when revenues have dropped more than $1 Billion since the end of the 2009 session and expenses are skyrocketing. To help solve Oregon’s budget crisis, I have been chosen as one of the House Co-Chairs of the Ways & Means Committee and Rep. Peter Buckley (D-Ashland) is my counter-part. Peter and I have worked together over the years and we are both committed to taking the necessary steps to deal with declining revenues in the most even-handed and responsible way we can.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity with Rep. Buckley to give a budget update to a group of human service providers in Medford. To see the budgetary and economic status update I gave, (Click here.) To see Rep. Buckley’s remarks, (Click here.). And, to see the Q. and A. session following our remarks, (Click here.)

Oregon waits anxiously for Governor Kitzhaber’s first “Governor’s Recommended Budget”, to be unveiled on February 1st. In recent weeks there have been multiple, unprecedented meetings between our Legislative leaders and Governor Kitzhaber. Such collaboration is both appreciated and beneficial in doing the people’s work. For the first time since I joined the legislature in 2003, there is a feeling of unity between the Executive and Legislative branches of government. Such cooperation will be vital if we are to address Oregon’s economic challenges in a timely, effective and professional manner.

The Governor has released the following general budget guidelines for his 2011-13 State Budget:

- Achieving Our Vision for Oregon. The focus of how we invest our limited resources in the next two years must be on building the foundation for a better future rather than on simply perpetuating the past.

- Managing within Available Resources. I have reviewed each agency and program and established a funding floor set at the level of General Fund and Lottery Fund resources the state currently has to spend assuming no additional federal funds will be made available. I then allocated the resources from the expected revenue growth over the next biennium to help transform service delivery rather than simply accepting the spending practices of the past.

- Changing the Way Public Services are Delivered. It is clear that in order to maintain important public services over the next two years - especially education and health care - we must change the way those services are delivered.

- Prioritizing Early Childhood Services. To secure Oregon's future we must recognize that the foundation of academic, social and economic success lies in the early childhood years. Therefore, the single most important action we can take to shift our pattern of investment from addressing problems after they have developed to preventing them in the first place is a sustained investment in early childhood. (For complete article, Click here.)

The Governor appears to be focusing on a reality-based-budgeting process for the future, which will be a logical strategy in consideration of our previous Governor’s Reset Cabinet findings. (Click here.)

The challenge for Governor Kitzhaber will be to stay strong in the face of stormy opposition. History has shown, “reform” is frequently discussed, yet rarely implemented as a result of the powerful coalitions that unite against it.

Disappointment results when hope for reform fails to contemplate the reality of power.

Nevertheless, this truly is time to, as the Governor has stated, “break decisively from the past.”

EARLY CHILDHOOD.

The opportunity and importance of “consolidation and alignment” cannot be over-emphasized. There are at least a dozen early childhood programs that compete for resources, yet maintain that their mission is different from the others (such as, First Start, Early Head Start, Healthy Start, Relief Nurseries, Babies First/Cocoon, etc.)

Utilization of available funds for outcomes will be important.

K-12 EDUCATION.

I suggest the following questions be asked as K-12 education funding is discussed:

--What changes are needed to improve the student achievement levels needed to ensure Oregon students are receiving a 21st century education that prepares them for a global economy?

--What can be done to improve the graduation rate?

--How can we change the education system to enable students to move forward at their own pace, based on individual achievement and not age or number of hours sitting in classrooms?

--How can we enable high achieving students to graduate early, and seamlessly transition into community colleges or universities?

--How can we enable non-academic students to gain basic high school level skills and seamlessly transition into technical schools, apprenticeships or on-the-job training opportunities?

--How can we encourage utilizing distance-learning technology statewide to enable students from poorer schools the opportunities to take courses from excellent teachers in subjects small schools could not afford to offer otherwise? (An example is Mandarin Chinese being offered by the Southern Oregon ESD to students in multiple rural schools via distance-learning, real-time audio-visual connections.)

POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION.

The goal of making post-secondary education an extension of high school learning is important for Oregon students.

Questions worth considering to ensure Oregon students have a clear pathway for success in Oregon’s post-secondary educational institutions could include:

--What needs to be done to ensure all OUS campuses automatically accept course credits earned at other Oregon community colleges and OUS campuses?

--How can we be more student-oriented by encouraging the utilization of on-line or distance-learning technology from various OUS campuses to enable students at other OUS campuses to progress toward graduation. (Currently, many students are hindered from progressing toward graduation by the inability to take a required or desired class that is already full or is only offered in certain terms each year at the student’s campus? Why not coordinate on-line courses or distance learning opportunities by breaking down the barriers currently existing between OUS campuses?)

HEALTH CARE REFORM.

There will be no true health care reform without restructuring the incentives. For the providers the incentives must be changed away from sick care visits and procedures to a “health-focused” system. Obviously, easier said than done.

In addition, there needs to be incentives for patients to care about their health-related expenditures. (I have written on this subject in a previous newsletter. Click here.)

HUMAN SERVICES.

Creative and pragmatic input is desperately needed in the field of Human Services.

On December 22, 2010, I sent the following email to Gary Miller and Don Bruland, two of Oregon’s human services leaders who are experienced in serving our most needy citizens:

Don and Gary,

Attached is the draft of the Foster Care Reinvestment bill, which Sen. Bates, Holly East and Rita Sullivan have been working on. It will implement statewide through DHS a Jackson County program that has cut the number of children in foster care by 50% in recent years.

I am sending this bill draft to you as an example of a bill that places into statute a Jackson County model for local delivery of services.

LC2830/SB196 might be useful when considering what a bill might look like that would promote delivery of services to poor and needy seniors, disabled, etc., at the county or regional level--when current DHS-delivered programs are no longer affordable. State revenue forecasts since the close of the 2009 legislative session are down by $1.3 billion; Measure 66 tax revenues for 2009 are down by 1/3 and 2009 Long-Term Capital Gains taxable income is down by $1.5 billion. Therefore, the revenues available for human services in 2011-13 will diminish even more than previously anticipated.

Don and Gary, you and your colleagues are the experts. It is imperative that a new model be developed for delivering vital services to our most needy citizens that accomplishes or improves the service delivery at a substantial reduction in costs. Please help your legislative team by developing model legislation as soon as possible. If we do not have a proposal filed for drafting within the next 40 days, it may be too late to implement during the 2011 legislative session. Without a new approach for delivering these crucial services, the State's likely option will be to severely cut current programs.

We have been discussing this challenge and opportunity to develop a new local-delivery model for much of the past year, and time is running out. Your decades of service to southern Oregon's most vulnerable citizens has uniquely prepared you to help organize your colleagues and resources to develop a plan that can change Oregon's unsustainable course.

This is a call to civic duty, hopefully you and your colleagues are up to the task.

Dennis Richardson

Both Gary and Don have agreed to work on this issue of developing a creative change in the way services are delivered.

PUBLIC SAFETY.

Incarceration is always the challenge. Promoters of Initiatives have had great success in convincing voters of the need to “get tough on crime.” Unfortunately, they forget to discuss the costs involved or the alternatives available.

The successful use of modern technology in other jurisdictions should be an inspiration for Oregon’s future incarceration strategy. In addition, there are ideas floating that could save millions. You might laugh, but in the spirit of “thinking outside the box” some are considering unique ways to deal with illegal alien inmates differently than legal residents. For instance, how about considering the affect on both cost and recidivism for Illegals who are sent to do their time in a private prison in China. With contractual agreements regarding care, treatment, nourishment, basic living conditions, etc., Illegals could be incarcerated for less than $10,000 per year—a fraction of current costs in Oregon. Plus, it would free up bed space and thereby avoid having to build or expand Oregon prisons. California contracts with Tennessee prisons, so how about Oregon contracting with its number one export partner, China. (Certainly there might be federal issues with moving prisoners across international borders, but creative thinking is about “what if” and not “no, because.”)

NATURAL RESOURCES.

As a legislator from a rural Oregon district, I can say from experience that rural Oregonians care deeply about the environment, and they would like to have it managed, not placed off-limits. Once again, I come from a viewpoint that it is private enterprise that creates prosperity; government does not.

My suggestions to create private jobs in rural Oregon is to recognize that for more than 100 years, rural Oregon had a vibrant, natural resource based economy, and with the change in attitudes toward logging, mining, fishing, etc., has been in an economic recession for nearly 30 years.

To stimulate jobs in rural Oregon, while recognizing the need to protect the environment, it is time for a move to middle ground. Suggestions to do so might include:

--Create/restore Oregon’s 100-year forest management plan. Consider the rationale for viewing timber as Oregon’s renewable resource/crop. It has been said that historically, timber is to Oregon what corn is to Iowa. (I know this is dicey, but I still am placing in on the table—especially since rural counties, such as Curry and Josephine may well go bankrupt after the four-year federal timber-money payment extension terminates in 2012. What can we learn from the decade of high Oregon unemployment and decrease in Oregon’s per capita incomes when compared with the rest of the nation? Something must change if we are to break the rural-recessionary cycle.)

--Remove barriers to generating bio-electricity with forest products—slash and downed timber that has turned Oregon forests into tender-boxes waiting for the next conflagration. (Bio-mass generated electricity would also help Oregon to be less dependent on foreign sources of power and fuel.) With Oregon’s emphasis on electric vehicles, we will need large amounts of low-cost electricity to recharge them, and bio-mass could provide it.

--Remove barriers to and promote research for converting forest products into ethanol. (Legislating the 10% ethanol requirement for Oregon gasoline has been a great boon for corn-producing states, but may have been premature for Oregon.) Forest product/bio-mass ethanol would be a great boon for Oregon. It would create thousands of rural Oregon jobs, help generate inexpensive electrical power and could save many jobs at Boardman.

The 2011 legislative session is one of both crisis and opportunity. It will require a joint effort by the Governor and the Legislature to rise to the occasion. I believe both are ready, willing and able to do so. United we stand…

Sincerely,

Dennis Richardson
State Representative

To subscribe to our Legislative Updates by email click here
To unsubscribe, click here.