Immediately after a grueling campaign and election, Governor-elect John Kitzhaber began to take one of his first steps as governor by pledging to bring more jobs to the state.
“I want to acknowledge all of the Oregonians who are out of work and looking for a job and wanting to know that there will be good jobs for themselves and their families in the future,” Kitzhaber said during his acceptance speech on Nov. 4 . “This is your victory too, because those … are the values we’ve been fighting for.”
In an attempt to fulfill his promise, Kitzhaber has created five teams that have been tasked with revitalizing Oregon’s economy and creating jobs during a time when the state’s unemployment rate is ranked the seventh-highest in the nation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state unemployment rate has reached 10.5 percent, which surpasses the national average of nine percent.
“There’s more than 200,000 Oregonians out of work, and it’s our job to do all we can to identify job opportunities for those individuals,” said Jillian Schoene, a spokesperson for John Kitzhaber.
Although there has been no recent speculations about Kitzhaber’s plan to address higher education initiatives, Schoene said the five teams will focus their efforts on five specific areas that were addressed during his campaign, including economic development, manufacturing, energy efficiency, biomass and workforce development.
“This is something that Governor-elect Kitzhaber does intend to use throughout his administration and that is looking to Oregonians from across the state for their expertise in any given area and tapping them for their knowledge to develop new policies,” Schoene said.
One of those individuals is Oregon AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Barbara Byrd, who was chosen by Kitzhaber as a team leader for his energy efficiency team. Byrd, who is also a senior instructor at the University’s Labor Education and Research Center, said the group is currently focusing on energy efficiency initiatives in the state’s public schools to not only save money and create jobs but improve the well-being of students and teachers.
“It may seem like such a small thing, except when public budgets are so tightly constrained and when the schools are all in such desperate need for money, being able to save on their utility bills is actually a huge deal,” Byrd said.
Byrd said one of the main challenges her group faces initially is financing energy efficiency projects that may begin in a few selected school districts as early as this coming summer. Byrd also said that convincing school administrators to approve the projects is another hurdle the group has to overcome considering the insurmountable cuts that schools face in the coming year.
However, many schools around the state may need the savings as well.
Nearly three months ago, former Gov. Ted Kulongoski called for increased cuts to all state agencies in preparation for a forecasted $378 million shortfall in state revenue over the next year.
As a result, the Eugene School District 4J alone is facing a projected deficit of about $27 to $38 million next year, which comprises 19 to 27 percent of its total operating budget.
“The board has some very clear and strenuous goals around student achievement,” district superintendent George Russell said. “The challenge that we face as we look toward where the future is taking us is how do we continue our focus on targeting our limited and ongoing strain of resources in terms of people, time and money upon student achievement, and that’s going to be a difficult one.”
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