Member Testimony
Chair Neron, members of the committee,
For the record, my name is Reed Scott-Schwalbach, and I am the president of the Oregon Education Association and am celebrating 25 years this academic year as an Oregon educator. OEA represents 42,000 educators across Oregon. That includes community college members, bus drivers, school custodian, classroom teachers, and nurses. 38,000 of our members are in our neighborhood k-12 schools.
We support HB 2140.
I’d first like to say thank you to all who have participated in the conversations that led to HB 2140. We have been advocating for this change for years, and HB 2140 represents a vast improvement for our students and the schools where they learn and grow.
First and foremost, thank you to Governor Kotek for being the leader we needed to bring people together around this topic, and drive towards a solution that best serves our students.
Secondly, thank you to State CFO Kate Nass for leading the conversation. And thank you to the staff at DAS and LFO for their willingness to engage.
We have been raising our concerns about the previous method of calculating CSL for many years. The top concerns have been these elements of the calculation:
- A 51% jump off point from the previous biennium.
- The lack of a forward-looking blended compensation model.
HB 2140 addresses the jump off point.
The former process used 50% of the previous biennium's allocation as the starting point, which worked for other government departments because their largest cost driver – raises – were covered under a side account of money known as the salary pot. Schools don’t have that salary pot, meaning starting at 50% was in effect a multi-hundred-million-dollar budget cut.
HB 2140 represents real progress on improving the accuracy of the calculation of the State School Fund’s CSL. By codifying the 51% jump off point, we ensure that future legislatures can have an accurate picture of what it takes for our public schools to maintain current services for the needs of the current students in classrooms.
This will allow the legislature to have a conversation about what investments could look like, rather than an argument about if basic needs are being met.
OEA urges your support for HB 2140, a critical improvement to our funding mechanism for K12 schools.
