OREGON AFSCME

e-lert #20  ¥  May 29, 2009

Edited by Don Loving, Council 75 Public Affairs Director

 

This will be a relatively short e-lert. It's not that we're getting lazy, it's that things are beginning to wind down — and, with the May 15 revenue forecast well in-hand and digested now, lawmakers are concentrating on state agency budgets, which make for a lesser volume of "news" than when they are dealing with several hundred bills earlier in the session.

 

With that, let's begin ...

 

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KEY BUDGET PLAYERS — Apologies if this is a little remedial for some readers, but we try to never assume that everyone understands the legislative process as well as we do as we "live it" during the session. We are in a crucial time period for many of the state agencies where AFSCME represents the employees, and in several cases we need you to contact legislators regarding those budgets — or we will soon.

 

So who do you contact? First, it's always important to contact your state senator and your state representative. Legislators give top priority to their own constituents. If you don't know who they are, click here to go to an online program that will match your legislators based on your home address.

 

When we're talking budgets, as we are here, it's also vitally important to contact the members of the Joint Ways and Means Committee — they are the ones who initially pass the proposed budgets. It's difficult to stop a budget once it gets to the House or Senate floor, especially when you get to the waning days of the session when lawmakers are eyeing adjournment.

 

Following here are e-mail links to all members of the Joint Ways and Means Committee. Use a little logic — if you see one of your legislators on this list, obviously that's one to really key in on. Otherwise, if you're a Corrections employee and you are e-mailing about the DOC budget, be sure to mention you're a DOC employee offering insight from that agency. Or OLCC, or DEQ, etc.

 

Will your state rep or senator actually see your e-mail? Maybe. But their staff will see it, and that does make a difference, especially when a lot of comments start coming in on the same topic. You are blessed with an excellent lobbying team and a union that plays politics well, but it's still vital that legislators hear from "real people" on these budgets.

 

OK, the list ...

 

Senate members of Ways and Means include Co-Chair Sen. Margaret Carter (D-Portland), Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose), Sen. Alan Bates (D-Ashland), Sen. Fred Girod (R-Stayton), Sen. Rod Monroe (D-Portland), Sen. David Nelson (R-Pendleton), Sen. Joanne Verger (D-Coos Bay), Sen. Vicki Walker (D-Eugene), Sen. Doug Whitsett (R-Klamath Falls) and Sen. Jackie Winters (R-Salem).

 

House members include Co-Chair Rep. Peter Buckley (D-Ashland), Rep. Nancy Nathanson (D-Eugene), Rep. David Edwards (D-Hillsboro), Rep. Larry Galizio (D-Tigard), Rep. Bill Garrard (R-Klamath Falls), Rep. George Gilman (R-Medford), Rep. Bob Jenson (R-Pendleton), Rep. Betty Komp (D-Woodburn), Rep. Tina Kotek (D-Portland), Rep. Dennis Richardson (R-Central Point), Rep. Chip Shields (D-Portland and Rep. Greg Smith (R-Heppner).

 

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DOC & DPSST — Council 75 Political Coordinator Mary Botkin says there are two budgets that need immediate attention from Oregon AFSCME members: the Department of Corrections and the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training. As noted in earlier editions of the e-lert, there's also a tie-in between these two agency budgets.

 

The union has been fighting a proposal to strip the independent, certified DPSST training that Corrections employees now receive and replace it with mostly online, in-house training within the DOC. The DPSST budget passed out of its Ways and Means Public Safety Subcommittee yesterday (May 28) and, despite Botkin's strident objections, in her words "every Democrat rolled us." Two Republican state reps did stand up to the agencies and voted with AFSCME in opposing the budget with the cuts: Rep. Tim Freeman (R-Roseburg) and Rep. Greg Smith (R-Heppner). "Those two get major kudos," says Botkin.

 

Budgets move quickly from the subcommittees to the full Ways and Means Committee, so Botkin says action is needed now in an effort to stop these proposals. In addition to the training component, Botkin has many other areas of concern about the DOC budget, including a $77.8 million reduction tagged as "changes to sentencing and other changes to reduce need for prison beds."

 

"We are seeing some further specifics on how they'll get to this $77.8 million figure, and there are lots of concerns," said Botkin. "There's $7 million in 'unspecified' cuts within the DOC itself. It's certainly not lost on us that $7 million happens to be about what the training at DPSST costs the DOC. There are also proposed cutbacks spilling into the Department of Justice, Oregon State Police, OYA and the Military Department that could impact our members in those agencies as fallout from the Corrections proposal.

 

"We need more time to re-work these budgets and the only way to do that right now is to stop them in their tracks. We need members to contact their legislators and Ways and Means members now! And I mean right now —there's no time to waste!"

 

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DOC MANAGERS — Botkin and yours truly figured out how to use the calculator function on our Blackberries yesterday at the capitol when we received some DOC budget detail. The Department handily lists most of its management employees with the word "manager" somewhere in the title, so we were able to do some quick math. (Fortunately I'm pretty good at multiplication.)

 

The DOC has a huge series of middle and upper managers with the title "Manager Executive" A through I. For example, there are 11 Manager A's, 15 Manager B's, 52 Manager C's and so on right through the two Manager I's — which we assume have to be DOC Director Max Williams and Deputy Director Mitch Morrow. At any rate, there are 221 of these people, and their cost to the DOC for the 2009-11 biennium is a staggering $48 million. To be clear, that number includes all salary, vacation time, benefits, PERS and anything else. On average, each one of these people costs the state $218,500.34 for the biennium.

 

And the numbers only get bigger. If you add in 13 nurse managers, that's another $2.9 million. The 51 Security captains and the 119 lieutenants — also in the management series — add another $33.5 million to the total. All told, the DOC will spend at least $84,828,461 on management staff in 2009-11 — probably somewhat more, as Madame Botkin and I don't know every last DOC classification and which are and aren't managers.

 

You can see, with that piece of information, why Botkin is so enraged when the DOC says it can't afford the $7 million it costs to train Corrections Officers at the DPSST.

 

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WHAT'S IN IT FOR US? — Due to the heavy media coverage, you undoubtedly heard that the $960 million state transportation package passed the House earlier this week, then passed the Senate this morning. The controversial bill, HB 2001, included "earmarks" for several specific projects, something not done in Oregon before. Traditionally the Legislature has simply passed the money on to ODOT and let the agency prioritize where the money is to be spent. The bill was also opposed by some environmental groups. At one point Gov. Ted Kulongoski said he would veto the measure if it included earmarks, but he's backed away from that threat and will sign the bill.

 

Oregon AFSCME Political Coordinator Ralph Groener says HB 2001 has several good aspects for Council 75 members, even though ODOT is not an AFSCME-represented agency.

 

"First and foremost, this will put a lot of people to work on family wage, road construction and related jobs, and those people will be paying state income taxes into our General Fund," said Groener. "Given our dependence on the income tax in this state, that's a very good thing.

 

"Secondly, the bill includes money for road maintenance and repair at the city and county level," Groener continued. "In local government, we don't build roads but we absolutely maintain them, so when you see the phrase 'maintenance and repair' those are our municipal members. This bill funnels about $80 million to counties and another $60 million to Oregon cities, and a lot of that money will go to keeping AFSCME-represented city or county road department members on their jobs."

 

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LOBBY DAY II — There was a good contingent of AFSCME-represented state employees with us in the capitol the afternoon of May 26 following the latest state Central Table negotiations. They spent their time visiting key legislators talking about — what else? — the state budget, their jobs and their agencies and its impact on bargaining a new contract.

 

Yours truly and Botkin also had the pleasure of escorting three members of Local 2505 (OLCC) to legislative meetings throughout the day. The current OLCC budget proposal would entirely cut the agency's Salem field office of eight people. Jacki Berrios, Steve Berrios and Chris Nolte all took vacation days to prowl the capitol and explain to lawmakers why closing the OLCC's field office in the state's capital city doesn't make good sense, public relations-wise or otherwise.

 

Yes, senior employees could bump into other offices. The OLCC has already informed the Berrios' — a married couple living in Keizer with two middle-schoolers — that they would indeed still have jobs: Jacki in Newport and Steve in Medford. Nothing like the state promoting families!

 

At least the timing was good for the visits from Nolte and the Berrios' — that same day, an article in the Salem Statesman Journal about the state budget highlighted the Berrios' situation and included a photo of Jacki. Several legislators, staff and others recognized Jacki from the paper.

 

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Other capitol news, briefly ...

 

Ÿ      After much angst earlier in the session, Groener says community mental health programs look to come out of the budget process "pretty much without harm." He credits that success to good grassroots support, both from union members and service recipients. The Area Agency on Aging (AAA or "Triple A's") budgets are also essentially intact.

 

Ÿ      Botkin is working with several groups on the issue of whether or not to support a delay in the implementation of Ballot Measure 57, the November 2008 measure that would increase mandatory minimum sentences for many personal property and ID theft crimes. Botkin says the union could support the delay "under the right circumstances." No deal has been struck as yet.

 

Ÿ      Political Coordinator Joe Baessler reports HB 2005, the election reform bill that earlier passed the House has now passed the Senate Rules Committee by a 3 to 2 margin. "There was notice of a minority report, which allows the opposition to present another idea to the floor that the entire Senate gets to vote on," said Baessler. "It is not likely to derail this important bill, but is just more shenanigans we have to deal with."

 

Ÿ      Also on the election front, Baessler and AFSCME are working on a bill in the waning days that will force elections and signature gathering to be more open. "HB 3237 is undergoing amendments at our request, along with the teachers' union, to open the signature verification process to make sure we always have access to watch that process," said Baessler. "Right now we only have access if the Secretary of State allows it, which they have — but you never know what the future holds. We need to make sure that the measures on the ballot are actually the will of the people and not the will of Bill Sizemore and his cronies."

 

Ÿ      Groener is still wrangling over the DEQ budget, where Local 3336 represents some 700 members. Most of the DEQ is fee-based, but its Water division funding does come from the General Fund. While General Fund agencies typically took a 15 percent hit, DEQ got stuck with an extra percent, 16 percent. By the same token, OHSU was only tagged with a 10 percent reduction. OHSU gets a very small percentage of its operational budget from the state General Fund; still, this was good news. There are over 4,000 AFSCME members on "Pill Hill" represented by Local 328.

 

Ÿ      Speaking of OHSU, the bill to place a designated labor position on the OHSU Board of Directors is not officially dead, but it's definitely on life support. Botkin is still furious that OHSU opposed the bill after the unions agreed to amendments the University lobbyists proposed. But it appears time is running out on the bill for this session.

 

Ÿ      Groener says hearings on two revenue issues important to Oregon AFSCME — increasing the tax on Oregon's wealthiest citizens and upping the corporate minimum tax — began in earnest May 27. The goal is to raise an additional $800 million through the two proposals. Groener received kudos from committee members and other lobbyists for pointing out during his testimony the impact that 1990's Ballot Measure 5 continues to have on the current budget crisis. Measure 5, Oregon's original property tax limitation measure, also granted a huge property tax break to businesses while restricting the growth of individuals' property tax rates. "There are a lot of younger people here that have no idea about Measure 5," said Groener.

 

Ÿ      HB 2186, the greenhouse gas emissions bill that passed the House earlier this session, should finally hit the Senate floor soon, possibly next week. It's a priority bill for the Council 75 Environmental Caucus.

 

Ÿ      Hearings on HB 2009 — minus the provider tax options, as reported earlier — and HB 2116, which picked up the tax piece, have been pushed off until next week. But it appears that the "deal" is still in place: a 1 percent provider tax on insurers and a 3 percent tax on hospitals. The money will be used as matching money for up to $1 billion in increased Medicaid funds for Oregon. One unexpected snafu that's being worked on: as written the bill would ensnare PEBB and BUBB with the tax, which wasn't meant to happen. That would be a matter of the state essentially having to find the money to pay the tax to itself; even in Salem, that doesn't make sense.

 

Ÿ      How long will they go? June 30 has been the target date all along for adjourning this session, with agreement that some sort of "special session" will occur in February 2010 to review the budgets. Some Senate leaders this week talked out loud about finishing by June 15. Botkin doesn't believe they can do that, but concedes that with a big push lawmakers could beat their original June 30 goal.

 

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Elsewhere ...

 

MEMBERS CRITICIZE PORTLAND POLICE BUREAU — Non-sworn personnel are criticizing a Portland Police Bureau proposal to eliminate a vital unit that serves the city's elderly residents, as well as victims of sexual assault and potential suicide victims.

 

At the heart of the employees' dissatisfaction is the Police Bureau's plan to cut — as part of an overall "reorganization" — the Portland Police Information & Referral Unit. The five-member unit has handled nearly 200,000 calls in the last two years.

 

James Hester is the staff rep for Oregon AFSCME Local 189 (City of Portland), which represents the Police Bureau's non-sworn workers. Hester says the Information & Referral Unit fulfills a unique role entirely different in nature than the city's 911 emergency call center.

 

"This unit responds to the city's senior citizens who sometimes simply get confused and need help," said Hester. "They also frequently assist victims of sexual assault and rape who are afraid and seeking guidance, or people on the verge of suicide, and even young women being pushed into prostitution. These are people in desperate situations with nowhere else to turn."

 

Continuing the unit would cost the city approximately $230,000, a "nominal amount compared to the millions committed to the Police Bureau budget annually." Hester notes two of the positions are federally funded.

 

"But this isn't just about $230,000," said Hester. "This program is about the people of Portland and the value this program brings to the City of Portland and the Police Bureau. This is about the many elderly, homeless and mentally disabled people living in Portland who call the Information & Referral Unit for guidance because they are confused, overwhelmed and/or victims of crime."

 

Hester said the proposal to cut the Information & Referral Unit is indicative of larger problems encompassed within the entire reorganization plan, problems Hester said are exacerbated by the Bureau's lack of communication with its non-sworn employees. Those employees, Hester emphasized, are the front line workers handling the crises on a day-to-day basis.

 

Representing nearly 1,200 members, Local 189 is the largest public employee union in the City of Portland and the leading partner of the 1,800 member District Council of Trade Unions.

 

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WYDEN PRESS CONFERENCE — Representatives of AFSCME, the Oregon Education Association and the Oregon AFL-CIO banded together May 26 for a Salem press conference lambasting the national health care plan proposed by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), which we detailed in last week's e-lert.

 

AFSCME is part of a coalition of unions that have joined forces to sponsor radio ads in Portland and Eugene outlining labor's opposition to Wyden's plan, which includes taxing health care benefits for some recipients. Wyden recently took the unusual tact of running counter advertisements, which the unions believe only muddy the waters and overshadow the reasons why labor is opposing the Wyden plan in the first place.

 

"In a time when real reform is not only possible, but desperately needed, Sen. Wyden is proposing a plan that is not comprehensive, does not protect our current levels of coverage and puts an unfair tax burden on many working families," said Oregon AFSCME Executive Director Ken Allen.

 

"With many options on the table, we need to begin to filter out the bad ideas and focus in on the good ones," Allen continued. "We believe that you cannot have comprehensive health care reform without including a real public health option to create competition and drive down costs. We also believe that we must protect the employer-based health care system that is already in existence — a system that allows individuals to choose their health insurance plan, and that protects employees from paying taxes on their health benefits."

 

Allen and other speakers decried the lack of a public option in Wyden's proposal.

 

"One of the significant flaws of the bill that I'd like to point out today is that Sen. Wyden's bill does not provide the choice of a public health insurance option," said Larry Wolf, President of the Oregon Education Association. "This doesn't make good sense. The option of a high quality public plan would require private plans to compete on quality and cost and result in better private coverage."

 

Wolf and Allen both said that in failing to provide Americans with the public insurance option, the Wyden plan does not meet the principles for health care reform that President Obama has championed. Other speakers at the event included Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain and Dick DeZeeuw, President of AFSCME Local 3336 (DEQ). State Rep. Brian Clem (D-Salem) was also scheduled to appear, but had to bow out due to a legislative committee scheduling conflict.

 

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