Skip to main contentEliminating administrative costs for public schools is always a popular goal.
Yet some schools' advocates are resisting one effort to reduce the bureaucracy of K-12 education in Oregon, even as the state faces a possible $1 billion shortfall in education funding for the next biennium.
Sen. Mark Hass (D-Portland) is leading the charge to reduce bureaucracy by targeting Oregon's obscure network of education service districts, the 20 quasi-autonomous government agencies in the state that act like co-ops for school districts within ESDs' boundaries. ESDs pool resources to help those smaller districts pay for everything from Outdoor School to special education teachers to nurses.
Hass says it's time to streamline ESDs. He wants to reduce their number from 20 to 13 to give them even more buying power and to cut administrative layers. In the process, he wants to transform how ESD board members are selected. In fact, he wants to do away entirely with their elections (like the current ones on the May 19 ballot; see page 17 for more on the local races).
Hass acknowledges his proposal is not automatic. Similar legislation from him failed in the 2003 and 2005 Legislatures. "You can marshal an army to protect the status quo," Hass says.
But two factors favor it this session: the economy, and former Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto. (More on him in a bit.)
Education service districts receive 4.75 percent of the state school fund for K-12 education. In the current two-year budget period ending this June 30, that meant $300 million of a $6.4 billion funding package.
Hass says his proposal, Senate Bill 574, would eliminate costs that could free up money for other essential services. Cutting the salaries of seven ESD superintendents, for instance, would enable ESDs to pay for 21 teachers, he says. (Opponents counter that the mergers could also create new costs; a fiscal impact statement from the Legislature doesn't offer many details.)
Gov. Ted Kulongoski hasn't taken a position on the bill. The powerful Oregon Education Association union, which represents teachers, is neutral. The Oregon Association of Education Service Districts, made up of ESD superintendents and board members, has agreed to accept consolidation. But it strongly opposes ditching the current system of electing board members, even though that too would save money.
The new system calls for board members of the various component school districts within an ESD to appoint members to the ESD boards. Those five members then would have the power to appoint four additional members.
Jean Haliski, a veteran member of the Multnomah Education Service District, calls that portion of the bill undemocratic, though it would save MESD about $125,000 every biennium. "It keeps the public from voting," says Haliski, who's up for re-election on the May 19 ballot.
It might have one other side effect, however. Bernie Giusto, the disgraced Multnomah County sheriff, filed to run for a vacant seat on the MESD board on the last possible day and is currently running unopposed for that seat. (Giusto did not return calls.)
Under the new system, Giusto still could have made a run at the seat by applying for it. But the members of the various school boards in the ESD would have to appoint the controversial Giusto. Overall, the new system gives school districts more incentive to weed out potentially inappropriate candidates.
"It heightens the opportunity for local school districts to influence who would serve on the ESD boards," says Jim Mabbott, superintendent of the Northwest Regional Education Service District, which serves Beaverton and Hillsboro.
Under Hass' proposal, the education service district that encompasses Multnomah County would be expanded to include all the school districts in Hood River and Wasco counties, too. If approved, the changes would take effect in July 2011.
WWeek 2015