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Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra Tammy’s views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy’s neighbors, Wayne Mayo, Betsy Johnson, Joe Corsiglia, President Trump, Henry Heimuller, VP Pence, Pat Robertson, Debi Corsiglia’s dog, or Claudia Eagle’s Cats. This Tammy’s Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or even reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone. See Standard Disclaimer.
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Oregon Gets an “F” When It Comes To Financing Our Schools,
Lottery $ & Public Schools
In 1995 Oregonians passed a constitutional amendment aiming Lottery profits to help fund public education. Currently, 57% of Oregon Lottery profits go to Oregon’s K-12 public schools to help pay teachers’ salaries, build and repair schools, purchase much needed textbooks, computers, equipment and support other essential services. A portion of this percentage also goes toward Oregon’s public colleges and universities, helping fund academic scholarships and intercollegiate athletics. By supporting the public education system, Oregonians have proven time and time again their obligation to the educational well-being of Oregon’s students. Lottery funds help support classrooms and the future stewards of Oregon.
But with this amount going to the schools the legislature fails to mention they have reduced the amount which the state collects and gives to each district throughout Oregon. In other words they have taken away the same amount they have collected from the lottery, so the schools have actually lost funding.
An analysis of 10 years of state budgets shows schools are receiving a steadily shrinking share of Oregon's revenue pie. The analysis by the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators was reviewed and updated by The Oregonian. Money is being directed to other programs such as parks and salmon recovery. In the 2003-05 budget cycle, spending on public schools captured nearly 45 percent of the entire general fund and lottery pot of about $10.9 billion. In the coming two-year budget, projected at $14.6 billion, schools are penciled in at $5.7 billion, or 39 percent of the total. Schools are losing out.
Yet the state is spending more on prisons up from 14% to 16%. Spending on human services and Medicaid is expected to claim nearly 26 percent of the budget, compared with 21 percent 10 years ago. Even though state legislatures constantly say they support schools, when push comes to shove the legislature votes to decrease funding for schools and deem the money for other projects.
After decades of steady increases in school budgets, peaking at $6.1 billion in 2007-09, the latest proposal for 2011-13 would result in an unmatched four straight years of reduced or flat state spending in actual dollars. When all revenue sources are included, such as local property taxes, schools are still getting less in actual dollars than they got four years ago.
1990's Measure 5 began to shift most of the cost of schools onto the state's volatile income taxes, rather than the more stable local property taxes. Now the state collects property taxes across the state and then divides the entire proceeds to all the schools. more than 80 percent of school expenses relate to personnel. The cost of PERS has been one of the most troubling financial problems for the state.
While I personally believe that everyone deserves to have a decent wage and a decent retirement , there comes a time when things get out of control and I believe the teachers, state workers have done this. Where do you retire and make more than when you were working, who gets their health care paid for, and where most people working do not start out at $60,000 a year and do not have 3 months off paid.
We have issues locally regarding our kids. We have so-called blended classes where you have one teacher trying to teach half a class of 1st graders and half a class of 2nd graders. Each child not receiving a full day of education, the state requires each kid to attend a full day of school for 175 days, well in my opinion when they have to share a teacher and another class they are getting half the mandated time. Blended classes are not good for our children. Blended classes are done because the district claims they can not afford a teacher to teach a small class so they decided to join the classes to do away with one teacher position because the school has to have a certain number of kids to be allowed to hire a teacher.
I am sorry but that is not the kids fault, not the teachers fault but it is someone's fault and that is the state and the legislature and I also blame the school district as well. In our district they re-drew the boundary lines ,and Columbia City got nailed for the extra kids and now has something like 3 blended classes. So these kids are not getting the education equal to other kids the same age and grade in our own district.
The state sold the lottery to the people that the money would go to the schools, not so much, the money goes to many other places, shameful, liars.
I suggest we contact the legislature and demand that the entire lottery dollars go to the schools where they were intended.
Tammy
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