SALEM, Ore., Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Oregon educators said Thursday they would seek to overturn the veto of a $317 million funding plan that the state's governor rejected less than a month before the start of the new school year.
Governor John Kitzhaber used a statewide television address Wednesday evening to announce that he was not satisfied with the two funding bills that came out of a special session of the State Legislature and would convene another session for lawmakers to come up with a revenue plan that will offer a more reliable, long-term source of funding for education other than the bond sale and accounting changes he vetoed.
"The Legislature can either override my vetoes, clearly endorsing a financing policy based on borrowing and questionable accounting practices, or it can reject this kind of financing by sustaining these vetoes," Kitzhaber said in his speech. "In either case, this decision requires one up-or-down vote in each chamber, something that can easily be done in one day."
The Oregon School Board Association said Thursday it would lobby Salem lawmakers to overturn the vetoes next week because it was not practical to hold up funding for schools so late in the summer.
"In just 26 days, more than 550,000 young people will be waiting at the front doors of school buildings in communities throughout Oregon," said OSBA President Tom Bennett. "We need to know now that the money is there to fund their school programs for this year."
"We are not willing to sacrifice this year's learning opportunities for our young people," Bennett added.
Kitzhaber said he would call the Legislature into a fourth special session next week to come up with an alternative to the two bills that he had earlier vetoed. One bill authorized a $50 million bond sale backed by future revenue from cigarette taxes while the other moved the due date for a state payment to schools and community colleges.
"This allows the state to realize a one-time "paper gain" of $267 million by deferring the responsibility to make this payment to the next legislature," Kitzhaber said. "In other words, the bill shifts the due date, but not the money with which to actually make the payment."
The vetoes also irked many lawmakers who had come up with the financing plans during a time of a recession-caused budget shortfall and rising tab for the fighting of wildfires in the state.
"In a few short weeks, our children will return to school with an uncertain future -- a future that has been recklessly put into peril by the governor's decision to veto this legislation," Republican Rep. Lane Shetterly, the chairman of the Oregon House Revenue Committee, told The Oregonian. "We are at the bottom of an economic recession. This is a tough time to ask voters to increase taxes on themselves."
