Tax vote will have an impact on schools

The fiscal sky over Sisters will not fall if Measure 28 fails. Nonetheless, the fate of the measure at the polls this month will make a difference to Sisters' public schools.

It will have much less impact on the City of Sisters.

Measure 28 was placed on the January 28 ballot by the Legislature, meeting in special session last September. It proposes a small, temporary (three-year) tax increase that would make up $310 million worth of cuts in the current state general fund budget.

The cuts will take effect if voters say no to Measure 28. These are the latest cuts the Legislature has ordered in response to falling state revenues this biennium, although they won't necessarily be the last.

Because Oregon schools rely on state funding to cover about two-thirds of their operating expenses, the $310-million reduction at issue now includes $95 million scheduled to be taken from the amount originally budgeted for schools.

Sisters' piece of that is about $185,000.

But as School Superintendent Steve Swisher explains, the Sisters School Board anticipated further shrinkage in state funding when the 2002-03 school year began last fall. As a precaution, the board delayed the opening of school by four days.

Losing those four days will save the district $130,000 this year. This, combined with other, smaller reductions will mean that if voters reject Measure 28 most of the $185,000 bill here will have already been paid.

Not quite all. It might be necessary to consider cutting a fifth day from the 171 days originally scheduled. Swisher says that's uncertain.

The money saved by shortening the school year is actually the smaller rather than the greater part of economizing steps the schools have taken to accommodate state funding reductions this year.

The district's general fund budget for 2002-2003 stands at $7.9 million, down half-a-million dollars from the $8.4 million of the year before. Savings have been achieved by eliminating four positions from the instructional staff, three through attrition and one through a direct layoff. The custodial staff has been reduced by three-fourths of a position and administrative costs have been squeezed by giving principals more teaching duties.

Shortening the school year by four days effects savings in a simple and direct way -- everyone on the payroll, from the superintendent down, loses four days' pay.

Many school districts plan to take similar steps if Measure 28 fails.

A mail survey by the Oregon School Boards Association in late December indicated that 55 of the 105 districts responding were planning to cut days.

The Bend-La Pine district, Sisters' educational big sister, is talking about cutting five days.

Won't this loss of school time get districts in trouble with the state, which sets minimum standards for a variety of things? Apparently not.

Swisher says Sisters always has a cushion of a few days to be used for unexpected closures -- usually weather-related.

A four-day cut will drop Sisters right to the minimum requirement of instructional hours for the year. Cutting an additional fifth day would put the district over the line.

However, the State Department of Education has indicated that because of the statewide fiscal problem it will be lenient in granting all districts waivers from the minimum-time requirement this year.

What if voters surprise the pollsters and professional "observers," something that happens fairly often, and approve Measure 28? Oregon school officials will be happy, but in Sisters they will face another decision: where to put the four days that would be restored to the schedule.

Two possibilities exist -- spring vacation or the end of the school year.

Next to the public school system, city government is probably the most visible entity of state or local government in Sisters.

How will City Hall be affected if Measure 28 goes down the tube in this month's election? The answer is clear: very little.

The reason is equally clear: The city doesn't depend on the state general fund for much of its financial support.

According to City Administrator Eileen Stein, the city was originally scheduled to receive $7,750 this fiscal year (2002-2003) in what is called state-shared revenue. This money comes from the state general fund.

But it represents a very small part of the city's own $1.7 million general fund budget. And the city's general fund, in turn, constitutes only a small portion of the overall city budget, in which all funds combined add up to $11.3 million.

So even if state-shared revenues for cities were eliminated as a result of the failure of Measure 28, neither Stein nor anyone else associated with city government would lose any sleep over it.