Special Session Legislative Report
Oregon’s second consecutive “supplemental” (even-year) legislative session ended February 25 after three and a half weeks of work on a variety of jobs and education-focused policy work. For public educators and students, this was generally a good session hugely due to the work of OEA:

PERS
The override of Gov. Kulongoski’s veto of a 2009 bill ensuring that prospective retirees are able to rely on the retirement estimates PERS provides. The bill also enables OPSRP members to access the same bridge health insurance that PERS tiers I and II members may purchase for the years between retirement and Medicare eligibility.

K-12 Budget Protected
SB 5565 ensures that the full $6 billion appropriated in 2009 is distributed to K-12 school districts without being dependent on the original “trigger” criteria. This should enable districts to budget for the 2010-2011 school year to the full $3.06 billion (second year) allocation.

ESDs
On the downside, legislators frustrated with problems in a few Education Service Districts (ESDs) sent a punitive fiscal message to all 20 ESDs by eliminating these districts’ access to the final $200 million that the budget adjustment guarantees. This represents a 5 percent cut from the ESD share of the budget ($10 million, or $15 per student). School districts will receive these “shifted” monies on an ADMw-distributed basis. OEA opposed this portion of the otherwise-positive budget adjustment.

SB 987 extends the three experimental governance model ESDs (Northwest Regional, High Desert, and Willamette) until 2013. OEA succeeded in its push for an amendment to the bill that protects staff seniority, accrued vacation, and compensation in the event of mergers and consolidations. A part of the conversation on this bill was that a permanent evolution to the pilot structure was premature because the governor’s regional service delivery group, part of his “Reset Committee” established by executive order, is still working on ESD restructuring and will be developing legislative recommendations for the 2011 Legislature.

State Board of Education
Until this special session, the appointment of public education employees to the State Board of Education was banned. OEA succeeded in its efforts to enable a governor to appoint as many as two school employees to the Board, ending the educator ban forever (see SB 1014).

Tax Break Reform
Legislators worked to reform the business energy tax credit (BETC) that they’d tried in 2009 to curb, but Gov. Kulongoski vetoed the fix. This time, HB 3680 will be signed by the Governor. It ensures that $55 million will be available in the current biennium to keep the 2009-2011 budget in balance. In 2011-2013, however, the BETC tax break will cost Oregon an estimated $276 million in tax revenues otherwise available to fund education, health care, and public safety. Additionally, the legislature passed a series of other tax breaks designed to aid economic recovery and jobs creation. A revenue impact estimate of these tax breaks is pending; OEA will share the net impact once the Legislative Revenue Office has finished its calculations.

Credit Unions
In January 2013, school districts will be able to deposit public funds in a credit union instead of a bank for the first time. By doing so, it is likely that the districts will be able to enjoy favorable rates and fewer fees as credit union members, thereby maximizing education resources for students (see HB 3700). 

Online Education
Two bills to continue the push for educational accountability, transparency, equity, and wise resource use in Oregon virtual charter schools were passed by the 2010 legislature. HB 3660, the bill crafted by the Interim Online Task Force created by OEA’s top-priority bill in the 2009 session, will improve educational standards, accounting practices, and staffing. The bill will also direct the State Board of Education to recommend by September an improved governance and finance model for online learning and that examines ways to remove access barriers to online learning for students with disabilities and other obstacles.

A second bill, HB 3688, makes illegal the practice of offering “incentives” for enrollment in a charter school. OEA member Ginger Redlinger alerted the OEA and the legislature of a school’s use of cash rebates of $500 as an enrollment incentive, her alertness led to the successful legislation banning the practice. 

Religious Garb
Though OEA is still working through the complex issues associated with the legal question of whether teachers or other public educators ought to be allowed to wear headscarves or other religious apparel on the job, the Legislature voted to end the prohibition, first enacted in the early part of the twentieth century as a result of the Ku Klux Klan’s efforts to keep Catholic nuns from teaching in Oregon public schools. Read the cover story of Today's OEA about this issue.

HB 3686 deletes the religious garb ban but makes the effective date two years from now and establishes a task force to review some of the complex legal issues involved before the new law takes effect (OEA will bring a proposed legislative objective on this issue to the April 2010 Representative Assembly for its review and vote). OEA did not take a position on HB 3686 during the 2010 session.