Rep. Peter Buckley and Sen. Margaret Carter, co-chairs of the Oregon Legislature’s Joint Committee on Ways and Means, wiped their eyes with Kleenex as the crowd burst into applause. They had just finished hearing two minutes of testimony from a woman who claimed Willamette Family Treatment Services changed her life – she’d been living under a bridge, homeless, pregnant and addicted to methamphetamines. Today, she is a college graduate, a mother and an employee of WFTS.
And during 2 1/2 hours of testimony heard in Lillis Business Complex on Friday, she was begging the teary-eyed committee members not to cut the next biennium’s funding for the program that turned her life around.
When she finished her short speech, the committee listened to citizens asking for funding to be maintained for trauma services in hospitals, higher education, new fire department radios, K-12 education, the Oregon Farm to School Program and countless other state-funded services that are threatened by Oregon’s $3.1-billion budget shortfall during the next two years.
The Ways and Means Committee faces a decision about which programs to cut, a decision that showed itself to be complicated and at times, heart-wrenching. It was the final testimonial hearing for the committee after several weeks of traveling around Oregon.
Buckley said the committee is “really struggling” with the decision of how to fund each program. Even following a set of outlined values isn’t helping, he said.
“We still come up with gaps where we don’t have resources to address really vital concerns,” he said after the hearing.
The University is no better off than other state-funded programs. The Oregon University System has asked all its institutions to prepare for a 30-percent budget reduction during the next two years.
The cuts would result in tuition increases, staff and faculty furlough days, possible pay cuts and even program and service cuts.
ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz addressed the committee on behalf of the University, as University President Dave Frohnmayer was unable to attend.
Dotters-Katz asked the committee to keep funding of the Oregon Opportunity Grant a priority, and to allow OUS institutions flexibility in setting their own policy.
University Senate Vice President Peter Gilkey echoed Dotters-Katz’s request in his written testimonial to the committee.
“Centralized detailed micromanagement directives from Salem can often be less efficient in accomplishing the desired outcomes than decentralized responses at the local level,” he wrote.
While the University did see representation at Friday’s hearing, it was outshone by the group of students, staff and faculty from Lane Community College. They wore matching blue LCC T-shirts and filled at least a quarter of the lecture hall.
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