Yeah, John Kitzhaber wears cowboy boots and big belt buckles
and has a weakness for Wild Turkey. He flies his own plane,
drives a vintage sports car and is a fan of environmental
anarchist Edward Abbey. So, is the guv a wild man or what?
Rebel with a cause? A James Dean for the next millennium?
Hardly. The Dr. John we know is best described as "clinical"
and "undramatic."
Tom McCall once landed a helicopter on an Oregon beach
to symbolize his stand against coastal development. Barbara
Roberts once told voters, in a fit of passion, that if property-tax-cutting
Ballot Measure 5 were to pass, people would die. Neil Goldschmidt
regularly flashed the arrogance that is the flip side of
his brilliance.
Kitzhaber? He makes Earl Blumenauer look like Marilyn Manson.
The two schools initiatives he unveiled last week offer
a case in point.
It's been many years since Kitzhaber promised to fix the
problems of school finance and several months since he said
he would do so by reforming Oregon's tax code. Last week's
announcement was not nearly so bold. At the same time, it
was much more in sync with the man's true nature.
His first proposal is the "School Accountability and Equity
Funding Act." This initiative isn't good, but it has good
intentions. It adds to the Oregon Constitution language
that "commits" the Legislature to fund schools adequately--or
explain why it hasn't. It's high-minded bark without bite.
The governor's second initiative, which he calls the "School
Funding Stability Act," is more consequential. It raises
no new taxes, and it provides no additional operating money
for schools. But it does create a reserve fund to bail out
K-12 the next time the economy dips and state revenues--which
are overly dependent on cyclical income taxes--dive.
Kitzhaber's inventive, if intricate, recipe for this rainy-day
fund has four ingredients. He would take 25 percent of the
tobacco-trust settlement, corral 15 percent of lottery proceeds
(now dedicated to providing higher-ed scholarships and paying
debt service on education bonds), raid the common school
fund (a pot of money that comes from the proceeds of state
timber and grazing lands) and, finally, earmark half of
any surplus from the kicker (the money that exceeds the
state revenue forecast, which is now returned to voters).
Such an effort could raise $350 million a biennium.
Kitzhaber had not one but two different pollsters test
this package with Oregon voters. According to both, using
kicker money is the only part of his proposal that Oregonians
find at all controversial. But even this finding didn't
dissuade the governor from including the kicker in his package.
In fact, adding it gives the governor what all good campaigns
need: clearly defined yet limited opposition. It will serve
to box in the state's Republicans by forcing them to oppose
schools in order to preserve the kicker--a device to which
they have lashed themselves.
These initiatives are not the ultimate solution. They will
not fix the ongoing challenges facing Portland Public Schools.
They may set off a civil war between education advocates
and the constituencies for other agencies, which have no
reserve funds. They certainly aren't a slam-dunk at the
ballot box. But they are restrained, deliberate, sensible--even
strategic.
Pure Kitzhaber.
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Willamette Week | originally
published October 27,
1999 |
