Sisters group pushes for more school funding

A Sisters organization is being formed to campaign for additional money for public schools in the 2005-07 state budget.

Called the Legislative Action Team for Schools in Sisters, the group has evolved from what was originally the Committee for Sisters School Children. The leader of the new group is Merry Ann Moore, mother of two Sisters Elementary School students.

The Legislative Action Team will be affiliated with Stand for Children, a statewide organization promoting a state school appropriation larger than the $5 billion recommended by Governor Ted Kulongoski.

A kickoff meeting for the Sisters group will be held at 6:45 p.m. Thursday, January 6, at Sisters Middle School.

Moore was one of the organizers of a meeting held in Sisters last month to discuss school funding. About 80 residents attended. The main speakers were Sarah Pope, representing the Portland-based Stand for Children; David Williams of the Oregon School Boards Association (OSBA); and State Sen. Ben Westlund, R-Tumalo.

Westlund used the forum to urge support for state tax reform -- including a retail sales tax or some other form of consumption tax -- as the only long-term answer to the need for stable and adequate school funding (The Nugget, December 22). Moore said last week that she agrees that tax reform is needed to relieve the state's over-reliance on the volatile personal income tax, one of Westlund's key points.

The OSBA's Williams reviewed Oregon's fiscal record of the past decade.

Among other things, he noted that:

• Initiative Measures 5 and 50 adopted during the 90s produced a fundamental shift in responsibility for the funding of public schools.

  Whereas in 1990 the state provided less than 30 percent of school financial support and local tax sources more than 70 percent, today the state covers nearly 70 percent of school costs 1and local funds only about 25 percent.

• When inflation is taken into account, school operating revenues (local and state) are $611 per student less than they were 12 years ago, in 1992-93.
• More than 70 percent of districts' funds around the state go for "teaching and helping kids" -- teachers, aides, textbooks, counselors, librarians, speech pathologists, etc.
• While schools are receiving $4.96 billion in the current biennium (2003-05), and the governor is proposing $5 billion for the next biennium, it would take $5.32 billion to maintain the current level of support.

At the same meeting, Pope urged those interested in this issue to sign up with relevant local organizations, such as Moore's, and to get those groups in turn to work with Stand for Children, which is attempting to coordinate a statewide effort to lobby for additional school funding.

During the question period she stressed that Stand for Children is not trying to compete with other social services and does not want the Legislature to reduce funding for other services in order to help schools.

She said her group is looking for a combination of revenue-raising measures and ways to cut spending that don't hurt social services.