Ferrioli, Bentz not pleased with special session

After the Oregon Legislature adjourned its special session Friday, Republican lawmakers said they’re worried that despite projected budget deficits in the near future, their colleagues increased spending by $30 million and expanded the state’s payroll by 200 positions.

The session ran from Feb. 1-25.

Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, and House Speaker Dave Hunt, D-Clackamas County, touted the Legislature’s passage of several bills intended to:

• Help create jobs

• Rein in unscrupulous lending and debt collection practices

• Bar most employers from conducting credit checks on job applicants

• Making health insurance more accessible and less expensive for small businesses and their employees

• Referring to voters in November a measure to amend the state Constitution and require the Legislature to convene annually rather than every two years.

 “In these three and a half weeks, we provided some much needed help to Oregon families in need,” Hunt said in a press release. “From extending unemployment benefits and funding day care for low income families to adding more dollars for college aid, we’ve helped families today when they need it most.

“On the jobs front, we passed several bills that both provide or protect jobs today while helping small businesses access much needed credit that will allow them to expand.”

But first and foremost, Hunt said, legislators balanced the state’s budget through a combination of $30 million in cuts and the use of reserve funds, mostly to protect schools from cuts.

Countering Hunt’s outlook, the two Republicans who represent Baker County — Sen. Ted Ferrioli of John Day, and Cliff Bentz of Ontario — criticized Democratic leaders for failing to cut spending enough in light of falling revenues, and for refusing to ease the tax and regulatory burdens on businesses.

“This special session was intended to demonstrate that the Legislature could be trusted with another session if it was used to address state emergencies and pressing policy issues — the issues that matter to Oregonians,” Ferrioli said. “Instead, the majority party has spent the last 24 days using the Legislature as their personal political cattle prod, hoping that Oregonians won’t notice the posturing and vengeful, partisan retribution against political enemies.”

Ferrioli mentioned in particular the Legislature’s failing to create a new rainy day fund.

Bentz said lawmakers should have focused during the special session on creating private-sector jobs, improving the economy and balancing state revenues and spending, but instead they expanded the state bureaucracy, which he believes will make the job of balancing the budget in the 2011-2013 biennium far more difficult.

Bentz said the Democratic majority chose to continue unsustainable spending, ignoring the state economist’s projections that, due to the recession, tax revenues will fall further before they pick up.

“There’s always more good that you could do with tax money than you could ever pay for,” Bentz said.

Bentz and many other Republican lawmakers called for deeper spending cuts and a harder look at eliminating lower priority programs to reduce the size of the budget hole the Legislature will face when it convenes in January 2011.

“The challenge we have is how to make our tax system less vulnerable to downturns in the economy,” but Bentz contends nothing was accomplished during the special session to deal with that challenge.

In rural communities across Northeastern Oregon, including Baker City, Enterprise and La Grande, Bentz said the current economic downturn is part of a long-term decline in the region’s timber, mining and agricultural industries.

“People are leaving communities where they grew up and have roots and family connections, primarily because they can’t find jobs,” Bentz said. “They are leaving and taking their kids with them. That is reducing student populations. That is causing  serious challenges to local school districts.”

Unless steps are taken to improve the business climate, environmental policies and the tax structure to make Oregon a more attractive place to do business, Bentz believes school districts will be facing even larger budget cuts of 10 percent or more in state school support in the next biennium, threatening the jobs of teachers, school administrators, custodians and other workers.

The state supplies more than half of school district’s budgets.

“The long-term solution is to create more jobs in our communities and bring the parents back and the kids back,” Bentz said. “Bring the jobs back.”

Bentz said he opposed tax-raising measures 66 and 67, which Oregon voters approved Jan. 26, because he was worried the tax hikes would drive investors and businesses out of Oregon, prolonging the recession and potentially causing persistent damage to the state’s economy.

“When I talk about stabilizing our revenue system, I am talking about making Oregon more inviting to business, not less inviting to business,” Bentz said.

Both Bentz and Ferrioli contend that several bills intended to create jobs in the private sector were blocked by the Democratic leadership, which instead passed legislation imposing costs and red tape on businesses that have already laid off employees and cut wages to survive the recession.

 On a positive note, Bentz said he was happy with some accomplishments of Legislature’s accomplishments, including enhancements to school funding, extension of unemployment benefits and reform of the business energy tax credit that can help with wind turbine, solar cell, biomass and geothermal developments.

Bentz said demand for energy tax credits, which can total as much as $10 million of a $20 million project,  soared far beyond what the 2007 Legislature had envisioned, and was on course to drain nearly $1.5 billion in state tax revenues.

“The program worked too well, and it took off like a rocket,” Bentz said.

Legislation passed during the special session that tightens the criteria for those tax credits awaits Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s signature, which Bentz said is expected since the governor “was on board for it.”

Bentz said he’s disappointed that Senate Democrats nixed a bill that would have limited the ability of lawmakers to move from the Legislature into top government agency jobs.

The Democratic leaders, Hunt and Courtney, said the Legislature made advances during the special session in areas of consumer protection, public safety, protecting school funding and creating temporary public works jobs. Some of the specific bills passed and touted by the Democratic leaders include:

• Senate Bill 1017, giving small businesses better access to capital through the Oregon Business Development Fund and the Oregon Entrepreneurial Development Loan Fund. This will help create and expand small businesses across the state.

 • House Bill 3698 creating the BOOST Fund to increase the availability of working capital to Oregon small businesses that create jobs and hire Oregonians to fill them.

• House Bill 3655, an immediate six-week extension in unemployment insurance benefits. This will help nearly 19,000 Oregonians make ends meet while they search for employment while putting dollars into local communities.

• House Bill 3706, broadening the state’s anti-fraud laws so that both private citizens and the Attorney General can sue lenders for misrepresentations, as they can do with most other businesses in Oregon. Consumer finance lenders, banks and trusts, credit unions, and mortgage lenders would no longer be exempt from legal action.

• Senate Bill 1045, the Job Applicant Fairness Act, to help Oregonians get back to work by allowing them to compete for jobs based on their qualifications, not their credit history. The bill restricts job related credit checks, with exceptions for banks, law enforcement and certain other businesses that can prove credit checks are vital.

• Senate Bill 1003 gives small businesses and their employees increased access to affordable health insurance by modifying requirements for association health plans. Such plans are used by many general contractors and other small businesses to offer health care to their workers.

• Senate Bill 1009 temporarily freezes until after the November 2010 election the early releases of thousands of felons eligible for 10 percent additional earned time toward early prison release. The bill automatically suspends resentencing hearings, imposes a “time-out” on additional earned time, expands the list of ineligible crimes, and calls for an independent audit of the program so the Legislature can adjust accordingly next session.

• The re-balanced state budget provides $6 billion in funding for Oregon’s public schools. This money allows districts to give step increases and other pay raises to teachers and other school employees during the recession, without cutting expenses.

• Senate Bills 5563 and 5564 authorize bond sales to fund the $65 million renovation of the Oregon Department of Transportation building on the Capitol Mall and $75 million for a new 451-bed dormitory on the University of Oregon’s East Campus. Combined the two projects will create approximately 600 temporary jobs.

• House Bill 5100 allocates $9.7 million in additional financial aid that will subsidize college education in the current academic year and set aside another $10 million for future enrollment growth. The grants are money paid directly to students.

• House Bill 5100 allocates $12.8 million for Employment Related Day Care allowing parents of 5,500 Oregon children from 2,900 families to continue to work. Additionally, it protects the jobs of more than 1,500 daycare workers.