Quote:
Originally posted by Mojo_PeiPei
Again I will ask, are they cutting increases in spending? Or decreasing money overall? I.e. instead of 7% growth for the programs, is it down to 4%? Or will the programs get less funding this year then last?
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You're obviously not from Oregon. The failure of Measure 30 means that 544 millions dollars that was allocated in the budget this year is gone. There haven't been increases for quite a while, since Measure 5 passed. Each year since 1990 the legislature tries to find a way to do more with less money. We never had a sales tax, and Measure 5 set a limit on property taxes and moved education control away from local control almost entirely into state control. We're already operating at sub-standard levels, now we have to take our inadequate budget and somehow slash 544 million from it. They are cutting everything, whatever had the slightest budgeted increase in spending is gone. We're literally to the point of letting hundreds of prisoners out of prison early.
I was answering Ustwo's question "why does your job require a tax hike?" - because now instead of having money to hire teachers to replace retiring teachers and deal with population increases (school districts get a set number of funds per each child), our state is going to be forced to lay off teachers unless something can be worked out before May.