On Wednesday, the state released its February Economic and Revenue Forecast. While that forecast was full of relatively good news, the general narrative coming out of Salem remains uncertain. There’s $106 million more revenue than previously forecasted, and $50 million from non-general fund sources as well, plus $147 million of unspent revenue from last session. By Thursday, Governor Kotek has signaled for the first time an openness to potentially using some of the over $1 billion in Oregon's Education Stability Funds to invest and grow Oregon public education, including PSU. This significant shift owes to every member who has rallied at the statehouse, met with legislators, and emailed the Governor and top legislators. That said, the session ends by statute as soon as February 27th, and these final two weeks will be decisive. Either the larger budget picture painted by federal changes to the tax code and SNAP and Medicaid payments will effectively let Trump defund our public institutions, or each of us can take action to push lawmakers to act decisively. There are important legislative efforts receiving hearings this week that could have very positive implications for mitigating HR. 1’s effects on the Oregon budget. These are:
- SB 1507 (Senate): Disconnecting from some of the federal tax rule changes to save an additional ~$311 million.
- HB 4014 (House): A vehicle to close two loopholes (FDDEI + GILTI) that reward multinational corporations for shifting profits abroad. Fixing this alone could raise $380 million.
If the state can achieve even moderate decoupling from the tax code changes of Trump’s HR. 1, we could see a significant change in the cuts scenario for agencies like HECC. In a world of logic and sense, that change ought to mean that cuts at PSU would enjoy a parallel reduction. But we’ve already seen that the level of budget cuts is increasing here at PSU rather than shrinking-- the administration’s new number in their “pragmatic” scenario is $40 million of cuts over two years. We will continue to push the administration to seek the best possible outcomes for PSU, urging President Cudd to avoid hasty layoffs and to situate us toward a speedy return to growth rather than further enrollment decline. But it takes all of us making our voices heard and our faces seen in Salem to impact the situation in ways that will force a shift in the Bridge to the Future outcomes.
SB 1507 Public Hearing
Wednesday, February 18th from 3-5pm
We have the ability to get the HECC cut down from 5% to at least 1% through SB 1507 closing 3 tax loopholes alone. A combination of passing SB 1507 and Education Stability Funds could eradicate the specter of a HECC cut, which President Cudd has used to justify layoffs and create the funding needed to grow PSU. Wednesday, February 18th from 3-5pm at the Statehouse, a broad coalition of Oregon academic labor, public sector unions will demand legislators not let Trump impose cuts on Oregon’s public institutions like PSU and vital public services through decoupling our tax code from the Federal tax code.
Tell your State Reps and Senators to stop the cuts through closing tax loopholes for large corporations and top income earners:
- Show up at the Statehouse in PSU-AAUP red, Wednesday, February 18th from 3-5pm
- Submit testimony about the impact of the potential HECC cut on PSU with this SB 1507 Testimony Submission Form
- Email your elected officials to support SB 1507
Phone-bank to stop the cuts
Thursday, February 19th at 6pm
Join PSU-AAUP members, academic labor statewide, AFT-Oregon, Oregon Working Families Party, and the Fight For Our Future revenue coalition by phone banking to call constituents in key target districts, tell them about the need for Education Stability Funds and decoupling from the federal tax code, and 'patch-them-through' to leave voicemails to their lawmakers. This will build bottom-up pressure on key targets who need the biggest push.
Register for Thursday, 2/19 at 6pm at this link