February 13, 2003
And Then There's the PBA School Funding Plan
Meanwhile, the PBA announced on Tuesday its proposal for school funding:
Portland's most powerful business group weighed in Tuesday with a two-year proposal to generate $40 million annually for Multnomah County schools through a combination of business tax money and "creative" city spending.
The Portland Business Alliance proposal also includes three conditions it says are a must.
Those three conditions?
The alliance conditions include the state Legislature coming through with cost-savings reforms in the Public Employees Retirement System. The alliance also insists that a new Portland Public Schools teacher contract include health care caps.
...
The alliance's third must is a replacement for the city's business license fee and the county's business income tax.
In general, according to this article, the response from backers of other plans has been to call the PBA's proposal a good place to start, but not much more than that. Of course, as also indicated by the article, now that the PBA has proclaimed what it will support, it will likely fight tooth and nail against alternatives it sees as "unfriendly" to them.
Then there's the resposne of Mayor Katz to the PBA proposal:
Mayor Vera Katz blasted a business proposal to help schools on Wednesday as "absurd," "stupid" and "irresponsible" because the plan calls on the city to tap its reserves.
...
Katz said the strategies aren't that creative, but she saved her harshest comments for the idea that reserves could be a resource.
She said the city has worked hard to maintain reserves to keep its strong credit rating. Katz said that, in turn, leads to lower bond financing costs for projects such as expansion of the Oregon Convention Center.
"The element in the Business Alliance proposal that asks the city to tap into reserves is absurd, Katz said. "It's un-businesslike, it's foolish, it's stupid. It's irresponsible."
Portland Commissioner Jim Francesconi and Multnomah County Chairwoman Diane Linn labelled the PBA plan as a "significant first step." Francesconi also (according to this article) said people should "stop any divisive comments" -- clearly a slap at Katz, despite his clean-up attempt at saying the remark applied to everyone.
Francesconi and Linn, for what it's worth, are big PBA backers (and the PBA is a big backer of both of them).
Comments (1)
Mr. Benson on 14 Feb 2003
Nice headline for the PBA: $40 million for schools. But its too bad they hid the deal killer down in the three conditions. The teachers will never accept health care caps. Why isn't the PBA's replacement for Portland's license and Multnomah's income tax a more divisive issue? Isn't this going to bleed the city and county's general funds dry in order to pay for schools? In the immortal words of Dubya, we ought to make the pie higher.