horsey:

Oh, well. Our voters are insane, obviously.

They clearly are, to have have elected a most mediocre person like Green in the first place, and then continued to re-elect him to office.

Green was just an average collegiate football player at the U of O.   If playing college football makes one qualified to hold public office, then Heisman Trophy winner OJ Simpson should have been elected the first African-American President of the United States many years ago.   For he was a far, far better college football player than Green ever was.

People threw Green out because he was in favor of higher taxes.   The same needs to be done to Faye Stewart next.

Lance

Well, I'm in favor of higher taxes, IF they are fair and they result in better essential services, like education, fire and rescue, law enforcement, and so on.

Nobody likes to pay taxes, but I understand the relationship between taxes and government services. I've lived in several "high tax" states, including California, Arizona and Massachusetts. Their schools were significantly better and included things like music and sports, so fewer kids had problems with obesity and diabetes. Their College tuition for in-state residents was affordable. The police services were good too, and the rest of their public safety systems functioned well too. They also had mental health services, animal control and much better public health systems. Our overall tax cost here is in the lowest third of the states. If out total "tax load" was raised to the U.S. average we could have average government services, and that would, for example, bring down our infant mortality rate, now one of the worst in the U.S. In-state tuition where I attended college was 1/17th what we had to pay for our last kid here. Yes, many years have passed, but inflation doesn't account for a a seventeen-fold increase. Most of that difference has to do with a vast reduction is state support for education.

Here's the deal, Oregon residents expect to have average levels of government service, whether we're talking about education programs or jail services, without paying average tax levels. It doesn't work that way. We've got to pay-to-play, but folks here haven't been willing to do that, so most of our essential services have withered since the state population started sharply increasing and the timber money declined to the point where the timber industry could no longer adequately subsidize government services. Our public safety services are less than half of average county-wide, because we're in the bottom quarter in tax-burden AND we fund the Oregon Health Plan. If we gave up the OHP, a terrible idea, we could immediately recover from last place in many of these services. I'd prefer to pay a bit more to retain the OHP AND fund education AND fund public safety and drug treatment. Maybe that's what makes me a "liberal". I'm prepared to pay for the trade. (Good schools, mental health services, police services, and healthy kids are worth MUCH more to me than a newer car or a ski-weekend. It's an easy call for me. Apparently Bobby Green and Faye Stewart recognized the same thing -- that more money was needed if the public safety system was going to recover.)

The problem, as Lance or somebody else said, is that our taxes here come in the form of very high property taxes and income taxes, both paid in large lumps. Us Oregonians who live outside the Portland metropolitan area pay less in taxes than all but about 16 states, and most (not all) of the less expensive states don't have anything like the Oregon health plan.

Obviously, I strike a different balance than Lance does. I'd pay up to another, say, $30 per month in taxes, as long as the person making/spending twice as much paid twice as much in additional taxes, and so on. Obviously, there is a limit -- but we can't get services for free, so we either have to choose the ones we don't want or pay more. It's as simple as that.

I have the impression that most folks in our area are as ignorant of all this as I was before I started paying attention to the county budget process and watching the budget presentations. Why wouldn't they be? Nobody reads the county budget stuff for fun, so the folks who read it tend to be people with an interest or victims, like me, who are trying to figure out why the system doesn't work anymore.

Now that I get it, I'm pissed that the government hasn't made a better effort to educate the citizens. I really believe most Eugene and Springfield residents would join in the solution if they knew:
1) The extra tax would be affordable -- like $5 or $7 per week for the average low-wage-earner like me and maybe $12 or $15 per week for a higher wage earner, and MUCH more for the corporations which experienced a windfall savings under measure 5.
2) The tax would be a blend which would include a roll-back in property and income taxes and the institution of a sales tax and higher "user fees" -- like registration taxes, beer and wine taxes (which have not increased in decades, and so on.)
3) The extra tax would produce a radical improvement in essential services, from education to mental health and infant care, including public safety.

I appeciate the dialogue.  Everyone has a valid point of view.  Perhaps not everyone understands the magnitude of the problem.  Just to reach a jail bed level of 1100 will cost 60 million dollars.  These costs will rise at 5 to 7 percent a year.  Today we pay $110,000 a year for a sheriff deputy or a corrections officer.  Next year we will pay about $115,000 for the same service.  The following year it will be in excess of $120,000.  If we could get $5 per week from each of our residents we could have a viable government, but that would require $20 from a family of four, or a $1,000 per year.  What are they going to have to give up to make that payment.  Should they eat beans and rice in order to pay $110,000 to a public servant?  What would it cost to add treatment to the mix?  What will it cost to keep our roads in working condition?  That family of four is now at $40 or $50 per week.  What work can they perform that will permit this?  We have a fundamental flaw in the system.  Government has priced itself out of the market.  We need to spend more time looking at the value we get for our money.  This was the case before we increased the angle of the downward spiral.  We are not necessarily doomed, but we need to first stop digging and get accountability from all the parties, including the media and the education system along with our political leaders.  So lets all encourage our leaders to give it to us straight and provide the tranparency we need to climb out of this hole.

Mike T:

I appeciate the dialogue.  Everyone has a valid point of view.  Perhaps not everyone understands the magnitude of the problem...  Today we pay $110,000 a year for a sheriff deputy or a corrections officer.  Next year we will pay about $115,000 for the same service...  If we could get $5 per week from each of our residents we could have a viable government, but that would require $20 from a family of four, or a $1,000 per year... Should they eat beans and rice in order to pay $110,000 to a public servant?

This is inaccurate and misleading. You're not paying a deputy $110,000 per year. That's substantially more than a twenty-five year captain at your sheriff's office is paid and captain is the highest rank. (There are only a couple or three of them.) The average Deputy is paid about half that. I'm sure the commissioners would love to pay them even less, but law enforcement positions are subject to binding arbitration in Oregon (because they are prohibited from going on strike.). For now I'm afraid Lane County will have to settle for paying their deputies less than Eugene Police, Springfield Police, Oregon State Police, Corvallis Police, Bend Police, and every other police agency for medium to large jurisdictions in Oregon.

Perhaps the down economy will improve the county's ability to hire capable people for low wages, but they have struggled with efforts to do that for years. Lane County committed to remain at least six percent below market in total compensation, and that's made it very difficult for them to hire for skill positions, particularly doctors, engineers, lawyers, nurses and computer technicians. During last year's budget hearings the director of the county computer department reported having 18 vacancies that he had been unable to fill for many months. (His employees kept leaving to work for Symantec, Sacred Heart, the University of Oregon and various other private sector employers offering raises of $1,500 to $2,000 per month. The county had trouble hiring public health nurses and deputy DA's too, because the county wage was SO far below those being paid by Sacred Heart and other public and private organizations.

I'm not saying Lane County doesn't overpay some employees. They do. Their clerks and secretaries are compensated FAR above market value, so those positions have always been extremely competitive and easy to fill. Obviously, those salaries could be frozen for quite q while, if the county was willing to manage a strike. (They are union positions.)

The same can't be said for the sheriffs office unless the numbers all changed this year. Lane County has been a feeder organization for many years, paying to strain law enforcement staff who bail out on Lane and move to Eugene, Portland or elsewhere for an immediate raise of $1,000 per month or more.

Mike's math is wrong. You don't need to pay cops lousy money and eliminate their retirement to make the finances work. None of the government employees in Oregon make anything like what their counterparts are paid in California, their employees have a much better retirement program, and California has almost twice the number of officers per citizen, and many times the number of jail beds per capita. The difference is a balanced tax structure which includes a sales tax and more aggressive corporate taxation. It works all over the country. You don't need to reinvent the wheel -- you just need to mount a few of them up and try them out!

You simply have to trade the timber subsidy you all got used to for 100 years for sales tax and average corporate taxes. (The California tax structure certainly hasn't killed their economy, as it's still generally described at the 7th largest economy in the world all by itself.)

Halo, my math is not wrong.  You are talking Apples and I am talking Oranges.  You are correct, the officer does not get the full cost in his/her paycheck.  I am right when I measure the full cost to the taxpayer for one officer.  My numbers come from the budget for personnel divided by the number of personnel supported by conversations with the Sheriff and two local police chiefs.  We do not serve the advancement of effective dialogue when we deny reality.

As to your other points about the balanced tax approach.  The last I looked, California was in a 7.5 billion dollar hole and Washington seems to be in a 6 billion dollar hole according to the article in todays RG.

It is not what we pay them, but what we get for our money.  When the work rules prevent the taxpayer from getting their moneys worth, we just can't afford to continue down that path.  That is just business.  When you do not get full value for your money something must change.

The point of focus needs to be on how we provide the economic growth to afford effective government.  Or how we make the government we can afford, effective.

 

Mike T:

Halo, my math is not wrong.  You are talking Apples and I am talking Oranges.  You are correct, the officer does not get the full cost in his/her paycheck.  I am right when I measure the full cost to the taxpayer for one officer.  My numbers come from the budget for personnel divided by the number of personnel supported by conversations with the Sheriff and two local police chiefs.  We do not serve the advancement of effective dialogue when we deny reality.

As to your other points about the balanced tax approach.  The last I looked, California was in a 7.5 billion dollar hole and Washington seems to be in a 6 billion dollar hole according to the article in todays RG.

It is not what we pay them, but what we get for our money.  When the work rules prevent the taxpayer from getting their moneys worth, we just can't afford to continue down that path.  That is just business.  When you do not get full value for your money something must change.

The point of focus needs to be on how we provide the economic growth to afford effective government.  Or how we make the government we can afford, effective.

 

Mike, when you say, " Should they eat beans and rice in order to pay $110,000 to a public servant?" it leaves the impression that the public servant is actually being PAID $110,000, as opposed to being paid $60,000 in salary, $30,000 in associated benefits, and $20,000 in other related costs, like training, vehicle, tires, pro-rata share of computer systems charges, and so on.

It's fair to talk "fully loaded" costs, in fact that makes most sense, but with the exception of business owners and people in management jobs, few have any idea what they actually "cost", so it's difficult to have "apples to apples" discussions.

I agree that the measure should be the quality of the bargain, "what we get for our money", but the quality of any bargain is defined by the alternatives. Getting a pair of jeans for $15 is a "good bargain" BECAUSE most others are paying $27 for the same jeans. Using that standard, you people in Lane County are getting a tremendous bargain in public safety, because of two measures. First, you're paying less in wages AND benefits per employee (total cost) than others in similar-sized jurisdictions. (At least that was true as of three years ago, the last time I could find your HR comparative cost summaries.) The Second component of your bargain is the number of employees you're maintaining. Your sheriff's office and DA's office are both smaller than they were in the 1970s! The sheriff had over twenty detectives then, but has only TWO left today (to manage a MUCH higher crime volume.) The DA had 11 detective-investigators in 1980, but now has only ONE left. A state grant finally allowed your DA to hire a second prosecutor in juvenile -- so you have finally achieved the same staffing Douglas County has -- except Douglas less than a third of your population and crime volume! (We have three DAs working juvenile crime in Bend, 50% more than you, and less than half of your population.) When you pay your employees less AND have 40% to 70% fewer of them than an average jurisdiction your size, you're spending MUCH less on the services than those jurisdictions -- obviously. Back in 2004, your DAs had the highest caseloads in the state, with caseloads that were 65% higher than the state average, and more than twice what they were in the late 70s and early 80s. (Quoting from the Public Safety Summary.) Based on the public safety hearing that was linked here, it looks like your commissioners are going to cut police/DA/jail services even more. Where does Lane County need to strike the balance? 10% of average public safety staffing per capita? 7%? 5%? Sorry, but it was nuts when we left and it's only gotten worse.

As to the deficit posture in California and Washington, as you know, that has more to do with a crashing economy than a fundamentally flawed system of funding law enforcement. Obviously, a government that sets spending parameters based on a strong economic forecast will fall into to a deficit posture if it's economy suddenly crashes and spending is not curtailed. Why don't we consider instead the California system as it has functioned for the last 25 years, as Lane County law enforcement has been near the bottom of the U.S, that long, through good times and bad. You say it's the compensation of the employees that put Lane County in this box? I just don't buy it. Their compensation has been consistently low even by Oregon standards, especially when the new reduced retirement program is included in the mix, and Oregon salary and benefits are MUCH lower than California, Washington and Nevada. How is it that they STILL average more than TWICE our police staffing levels on a per-capita basis? It's simple:
1) Their citizens WANT police, DAs and POs, because safe communities are a priority.
2) They have a diversified and comparatively stable tax/revenue stream.

I'll wager that California and Washington will solve their financial crisis without laying off 60% to 70% of their law enforcement employees, gutting their state retirement program or slashing law enforcement salaries. That's what they'd need to do just to get where you (Lane County) were last year. What do you have in mind for further slashing to make the local system work?

I'd love to have a bunch of top-rate detectives and DAs willing to work for $15 per hour and no benefits. While we're at it, I wish my dentist and doctor would work for that too -- then they'd only be a QUARTER of what our mechanic charges! Why not? The answer is they stop applying for work when your salary and benefits stink and they work somewhere else instead.

Having said that, if we have a real depression, you may actually get your wish, as cops will work for $15 per hour and no benefits if the only alternative is starvation. Between now and then local efforts at union-busting salary reductions would do nothing but send your deputies to other police agencies in Oregon and elsewhere. Your county has been paying to train deputies and DAs for other counties for many years as it is. Everybody would prefer to work where they a) get better pay, b) have better working conditions -- like manageable workloads and back-up, and c) are appreciated by the community.

Would you want to be a cop/DA/PO there?

The $110,000 does not include any tires, training or shared administrative costs.  That is what it costs to hire an officer.  And that cost is comparable in all the sectors.  This is the reality we need to recognize.

And again, it is what do I get for the money.  When we pay $20 million to operate a jail, do I get a jail operation or a 20 million dollar revolving door. 

Washington has Boeing, which allows for a tremendous resource to export the cost of government to all parts of the world.  California has thousands of producers that export the myriad of state taxes to all parts of the world. 

Lane county used to have timber to export our cost of government, and as you point out, when we had the economic engine, we had the best of government.  Now, we need new economic engines to support a very costly government or we need to restructure the government we have.  We are not an undertaxed group refusing to spring for more government.  If new taxes are absorbed locally, rather than exported, they come directly out of the food budget.  This puts the public on beans and rice to fund a very costly government.  We have dug this hole deep enough.

 

Mike, what do you mean when you say we need to restructure the government? If by "restructure" you mean simply "pay the employees less", citizens would support you, but why would employees continue to work for Lane County? Police officers appear to be in demand, as Lane County's laid-off deputies get snapped up quickly. The sheriff has trouble filling vacancies too, but it's reportedly worse when the county tries to hire nurses, computer programmers, engineers and lawyers, as the county compensation is so far below market levels. Last year the county computer department lost over twenty employees to other local jobs and the county was unable to replace most of them for most of the year. The DA had positions posted for most of the year too. How do you attract and retain employees to work for $1,500 per month less than they can earn doing the same job somewhere else? Even if you could, it wouldn't solve the problem. The county needs a new, bigger jail. Their buildings age-out just like everybody elses, so they need to be rebuilt or extensively remodeled. Seen the county courthouse lately? When I went to appeal an assessment they had buckets all over the lobby because of all the leaks in the roof. Floor tiles were coming up. The place is falling apart. Sooner or later they're going to have to find the money to repair or replace the collapsing infrastructure.

Let's suppose law enforcement was NOT subject to binding arbitration for wages and benefits, and suppose deputies couldn't quit to work for another law enforcement agency. Then suppose you could reduce the deputy salary by 50%. That still wouldn't provide enough savings to normally staff the sheriff's office. It would just bring them from two detectives to four (when they had over twenty back in the 1970s and probably need more now.)

I don't think I'm "under-taxed", nobody does, but like somebody else said, "If we want average service levels we're going to have to agree to average taxes."

I had the opportunity to negotiate with the attorny that represents the police union over the contract in one of the smaller cities.  His position was very simple and straight forward.  He looked at the city budget, added up all the reserves and demanded that much for the union.  This included the cash carryover, which is necessary to cover cash flow from July 1 to November, when the property tax money is available.  He stated we could make a counter offer, but he was ready to go to arbitration where he had a 9 out of 10 chance of prevailing.  When this is the approach, it is easy to understand why government does not have any money left to fix the roof.  I certainly have no respect for the negotiator, but it was his arrogance that annoyed me most.  The real problem lies in a legislature and governor that allowed that to be the process.  To their credit, the officers rejected their negotiators position and struck a reasonable agreement.  I personally have a great deal of respect and admiration for the people that agree to do that work.

I think a through analysis of the county labor shortage will put most of the weight on our unstable funding.  People do not want to take jobs that may not last.

We have citizens willing to pay more in taxes.  I simply pointed out $5 per week was inadequate and some of the reasons why.  That reality has not changed.

If we can agree that wealth (the ability to pay taxes) comes from the private sector, could we establish a baseline from which to set a salary cap for public employees, so that as a group, they are paid comparably to the private sector?  Then, under the theory that a rising tide lifts all boats, we might get public employees to work for the common good and become partners with the private sector.  Would this be better than an arbitrator picking one offer or the other?  When I look out to our future I see an ernomous need to work together to squeeze every bit of efficiency we can out of our economy.  So how do we get Handy and the other commissioners to focus on these issues?

What are some of the other possibilities to restructure government.  How do we get accountability and funding to the same place?  At this time last year Salem had so much money they were giving it back.  With that outcome do we really want to continue with business as usual?  Have you taken a good look at what Salem is spending money on while the  timber counties do without?  Without serious restructuring, how do we get control over our government.  The legislature writes rules they will never have to implement.  How do we get accountability from that action?

Restructuring is far more than cutting someones pay.  All the producers are entitled to fair and reasonable compensation.  The trick is in accomplishing it.  What do we need to do to improve the private sector so it can afford to carry the public sector?  What do we build and sell that gets us out of this hole?  How do we guide our commissioners to where we need to be?  How many of our current government services could be performed by NGO's?  Who should set the priorities for bus routes?  The appointed LTD board or the elected city officials?

The short answer to the question is turning out to be way to long, but it provides the flavor of what I mean.

Hope:

I strike a different balance than Lance does. I'd pay up to another, say, $30 per month in taxes, as long as the person making/spending twice as much paid twice as much in additional taxes, and so on. Obviously, there is a limit -- but we can't get services for free, so we either have to choose the ones we don't want or pay more. It's as simple as that. I have the impression that most folks in our area are as ignorant of all this as I was before I started paying attention to the county budget process and watching the budget presentations. Why wouldn't they be? Nobody reads the county budget stuff for fun, so the folks who read it tend to be people with an interest or victims, like me, who are trying to figure out why the system doesn't work anymore. Now that I get it, I'm pissed that the government hasn't made a better effort to educate the citizens. I really believe most Eugene and Springfield residents would join in the solution if they knew: 1) The extra tax would be affordable -- like $5 or $7 per week for the average low-wage-earner like me and maybe $12 or $15 per week for a higher wage earner, and MUCH more for the corporations which experienced a windfall savings under measure 5. 2) The tax would be a blend which would include a roll-back in property and income taxes and the institution of a sales tax and higher "user fees" -- like registration taxes, beer and wine taxes (which have not increased in decades, and so on.) 3) The extra tax would produce a radical improvement in essential services, from education to mental health and infant care, including public safety.

Hope, you clearly live up to your name, as you are absolutely hopelessly out of touch with current economic realities.  Have you no clue as to what is going on currently in our society?   Do you not know that Oregon's unemployment rate is currently skyrocketing?   The official state figure went up a whopping 1% just in the past month.   There are so many Oregonians unemployed now, that the state's phone system and websites for processing unemployment claims have both become overloaded and broken down in recent weeks.  People cannot even collect their unemployment checks, the situation is so bad.  I guess that you are sort of selective in what news you listen to.

And most experts expect that unemployment will continue to rise dramatically next year.   And no one has any handle at all as to when the economy might possibly start to turn around.   Some are saying that it could rebound by mid 2010, but there is no hard evidence of any kind yet to really point to that actually happening.

Are you not listening to all of the reports of one major industry after another being on the verge of failing and devasting the US economy?   Did you not hear about all the billions that the Federal Government had to come up to prevent Citibank from failing this past week?   US taxpayers are now guaranteeing over $300 Billion in problematic loans that they have. 

Are you deaf to all of the reports of how bad the current holiday shopping season is going on currently?   People don't have any extra money to spend these days.  Many are predicting that the current holiday season will be so very bad that we will see numerous major retailers fail and go out of business early next year, leaving even more folks unemployed.   Such businesses count on the holiday season to make the majority of their profits.

A number of leading economists are saying that the government increasing taxes on consumers right now would be one of the worst things to do.   For it will do further harm to the economy and make getting out of this current economic mess that we are in all the more difficult.

Besides, the people of Lane County have already TWICE voted against a County personal income tax.   Yet you want to try to go that route again?   Do you actually think that any of the commissioners would seriously consider doing that at this point in time?

NO OTHER County in Oregon has a personal income tax.   What is so special about Lane County that requires us to have a special tax that no other county has?  The only County with an income tax is Multnomah County, but it is only an income tax on businesses, not on individuals.  

I have no opposition to the County coming up with a new tax on businesses.   Or taxing the rich either.   Those two things are exactly the policy that President Obama says that he plans to implement on the Federal level shortly.   He is promising no new income taxes for individuals making less than $125,000, and families making less than $250,000   He is only going to increase taxes on those making more than that.   And he is promising to close enough "loop-holes" in corporate income taxes to bring in another Trillion dollars in revenue each year.

I think Obama's plan is what should also be adopted on local and state levels too.   Increase taxes on the rich, and on businesses too.  The true fact of the matter is that both corporations and the rich used to pay far higher income taxes in the USA.   But after what Reagan did in the 80's, that is no longer the case on the federal level.   And many states, including Oregon, have done exactly the same.  Corporations used to pay a far higher percentage of the income taxes here in Oregon, than what they now do.   Their existing contribution is absolutely pathetic.

But then again, they can afford to hire big lobbyists, and make huge campaign donations to politicians.   So they can get all of their tax breaks and other various forms of corporate welfare by buying influence in the government.    Well, if government now needs more money, then it needs to go back to how things used to be back in the 60's and 70's, and start making corporations and the rich paying more again like they used to.

They can afford it.   The middle class cannot.

This new insane proposal by our governor to increase motor vehicle registration fees by 300% is going to clearly backfire if the legislature goes ahead with it next year and backs it, and puts it into law.   If that happens, I think that one can pretty much guarantee on a grass roots rebellion over such an outrageously huge increase, with an initiative done to allow the people to vote on it.

Constantly increasing taxes every year, and then coming up and heaping even more NEW taxes on top of that all the time is simply NOT SUSTAINABLE.  My Property taxes went up a whopping 10.5% this year.  Even the normal yearly increase of only 3% is much more than what the average person in Lane County sees as a pay raise every year. 

Your idea of adding both a new local income taxes and also a state sales tax ( which is another flat tax that is an unfairly disproportionate burden on lower income classes ) is only going to continue to sink the average Oregonian lower and lower under a heavier and heavier tax burden.  The notion that other taxes will somehow be permanently reduced to compensate for other new taxes is not something that I've ever seen documented happening in the real world.

Lance

P.S.  -- I find your remarks implying that anyone who disagrees with increasing taxes to not be "educated" to be EXTREMELY condescending in nature.  And I've noticed that it is a tactic used time and again by many of those who advocate for higher taxes.   Both you and the others employing that elitist tactic will win no respect at all from anyone.

Mike, I can't disagree with a single thing you just said.

Here's the problem: We can't afford the current compensation, even with staffing levels below half of what would be required to do the job properly, so we sure as heck can't afford a market-based public sector salary structure. That would mean at LEAST a 20% raise for every public health nurse, a 30% to 40% raise for all the DAs and county attorneys, a massive raise for all the computer programmers -- basically a very large raise for anybody with graduate level (professional degrees), and the county has a lot of such people, because it provides specialized work in medicine, law, engineering, computer science and so on.

About the only people on easy-street at the county are the clerks, secretaries, flaggers and the like because, for them, the value of the benefit package nearly doubles their compensation, netting a total value that would be uncommon in the private sector. I suppose it might balance out favorably, because there are so many of the clerks and secretaries, but in this place a move that would bring UP professional salaries while lowering the salaries of clerks would be greeted with outrage. This community favors the "comparable worth" concept -- the idea that the secretary who answers the phone is just as important as the doctor she's scheduling for. This concept has been the basis for aggressively increasing the low-end county salaries while retarding the professional and management salaries. The county Personnel department has been trying to move the salary structure to a market-based model, but the big union, AFSCME, is fighting that tooth-and-nail, for obvious reasons. The commissioners could take them to the mat, but they'd be vilified, and they know it.

Mike T:

...Besides, the people of Lane County have already TWICE voted against a County personal income tax. Yet you want to try to go that route again? Do you actually think that any of the commissioners would seriously consider doing that at this point in time?

NO OTHER County in Oregon has a personal income tax. What is so special about Lane County that requires us to have a special tax that no other county has? The only County with an income tax is Multnomah County, but it is only an income tax on businesses, not on individuals.

You say no other county has an income tax. Are you suggesting the citizens in all Oregon counties should pay the same for government services? Suppose I agree? How do we get Lane County's tax base up to the state average?

Multomah County DID have an income tax, and it was imposed at a time when their property tax support was already over THREE TIMES the level (rate) collected by Lane County -- so I'll turn your question around. Is there some reason Lane County should be expected to provide the same level of essential government services as Oregon's other large metro counties with only 28% to 40% of the property tax support? Why shouldn't Lane County residents pay at a rate equal to that in Salem, Hillsboro or Portland? Would the tax structure that allowed Portland to flourish kill the Eugene economy? Multnomah property tax is now well over $4 per thousand of assessed property value... and Lane County is still at $1.28 per thousand. That's another $400 per year for a guy who owns a $150,000 house in Lane County. Would that be better?

I'm not advocating for an income tax, Mike, but I am an advocate for raising our level of taxation all the way up to national average, however we structure it. I'd happily trade California's tax structure for California's services. (No, I've never lived in California.) Our schools are mediocre, at best, while theirs are among the best in the country. UCLA and Cal-Berkley consistently make the top twenty list, and ten of those top slots go to private Universities like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Penn, and so on. California retains it's young brain-trust, while we export ours. Even Georgia makes education a priority... Look at the placement of Georgia grads compared with Oregon grads. We simply can't demand excellence in government without funding it.

It's not by accident that California and Washington dominated (and benefitted from) the high-tech industry. They had the educational base to support it AND both states recruited the businesses aggressively. Our local screw-the-business attitude sends business away and, when our communities actually reach out to recruit with incentives and tax breaks for business, the local anti-growth set criticizes for "pandering to the rich", even if the policies actually increase net revenue. Our citizens simply don't understand why the local economy is struggling while places like Durham, North Carolina are doing so well... Our citizens figure soaking "big businesses" and "rich people" is the solution to our ills. Of course, the "rich people" and businesses will just keep going somewhere else. Common, Mike. If you had a young $10 million dollar business would you consider moving it to Eugene? Not me. I'd read this blog and the Register Guard and I'd feel like a fattened goat staked in a clearing.

Although it IS about the money for you, me, and Lance, it's obviously not that way for most local voters. For the majority it's about priority, and public health and public safety ain't it. People here say yes to taxes for ANY other purpose. Parks? Yes. LCC ? You bet! (Look at the LCC buildings compared to the collapsing county courthouse -- and LCC pays BETTER benefits, has HIGHER overhead for core services, and has MUCH LOWER line-worker to supervisor ratios. Why are they exempt from all the criticisms that fit them so much better? The county courthouse could have been replaced five times for a fraction of the money spent on construction at LCC over the last twenty years.) It's not just schools either. Parks? Sure! Longer hours at the library? Absolutely! The ONLY thing they steadfastly refuse to support, in good times and bad, is basic health and law enforcement services, and it doesn't matter a whit that the treatment providers, prevention groups, prison-advocates, police, sheriff, DA, states judges, educators and defense attorneys ALL describe the local system as well past crisis levels. Can you imagine another place on the planet where ALL those people, half of whom usually oppose police measures, are advocating for JAIL? It doesn't matter. This community simply will not transition from world-view to data-driven decisions. And we still have no shortage of people, like Lance, who fight the tax battle by denying the crime problem. (A very effective strategy, because few will take the time to do the research or listen to the data.) We're screwed until something truly terrible happens to somebody, or some family, that people care about. I thought maybe the gang murder downtown would trigger something. Nope. Nothing. Then I thought the terrible group assault in Home Depot in the middle of the day might do it. Nope. But something sufficiently terrible will eventually move this community. Eventually.

Spanky, if you get a chance, please refer me back to where I made the quotes in the box.  I need to go back and see what I was thinking at the time.

As to paying average taxes, maybe we do and just don't know it.  Have you looked at the burden we have put on property lately.  With the bonded debt we are collecting over $20 a thousand, approaching $25 in some locales.  This was the level that prompted measure 5.  Add to that the 9% income tax and we spend a lot of money on government.  The county is on the short end of the stick, but overall we pay out a lot of money.  This is in a location that half the property is off-limits to taxes.  I visit the Portland area on occassion but never wanted to live there.  Obviously the high density allows for the high tax collections and the most efficient delivery of services.

I acknowledge your observation about new business coming to the area.  I don't think we have a chance of creating the jobs and economic development to grow our way out of this situation.  With a collective mind-set that we are entitled to have the rich pay our bills for us, even if it means taxing them out of existence, we don't have a very bright future.  It used to be democracy meant a hundred of us would get together and each put a dollar in the pot and then vote on how to spend it.  Now, 99 of us get together and agree to have someone else put a hundred dollars in the pot and then  we vote on how to spend it.

Did you know that under our current federal tax system, the top one percent of the incme earners pay 40% of the tax burden?  What is more interesting, that 40% is paid on just 22% of the income.  The top 5% pay 60% of the taxes on 37% of the income.  The Obama group is going to increase their share.  We better hurry and get our fair share from them before they run out of money.  Do you know what I find to the funniest part of this?  After we eliminate a few rock stars , jocks and movie stars, the top level of workers in this group are from the medical profession, and then we whine about the high cost of health care.  I truly love the crowd that wants to fix our tax problems on the backs of the corporations.  If we would just shift all the taxes to Safeway and Albertsons all our problems would be solved.

 I share the frustration of the ignorance of the public.  It is not clear if the media is the primary cause or the education system.  The sessions the County has scheduled will be interesting.  From the list of invitited participants I can guess at the programed outcome.  Still, I will attended and participate.  As a pragmatic optimist I believe we can educate Handy and the others without waiting for a cataclysmic event to educate them. 

 

Spanky:

You say no other county has an income tax. Are you suggesting the citizens in all Oregon counties should pay the same for government services? Suppose I agree? How do we get Lane County's tax base up to the state average?

Multomah County DID have an income tax, and it was imposed at a time when their property tax support was already over THREE TIMES the level (rate) collected by Lane County -- so I'll turn your question around. Is there some reason Lane County should be expected to provide the same level of essential government services as Oregon's other large metro counties with only 28% to 40% of the property tax support? Why shouldn't Lane County residents pay at a rate equal to that in Salem, Hillsboro or Portland? Would the tax structure that allowed Portland to flourish kill the Eugene economy? Multnomah property tax is now well over $4 per thousand of assessed property value... and Lane County is still at $1.28 per thousand. That's another $400 per year for a guy who owns a $150,000 house in Lane County. Would that be better?

I guess people down here figure they shouldn't have to pay like the rest of the state. Why should they?

When it comes right down to it, everybody down here wants the tax the other guy will pay. It's that simple.

I guess we're that way too. My husband makes right at $50,000 and I make almost $20,000 so we were almost $70,000 between the two of us last year. Some people think that's a lot, and we thought it would be a lot when we were in school, but it really isn't a lot after you take out all the taxes. We've got two kids and we're both still paying on student loans of almost $850 per month (for both). We're just starting to get our heads above water and we live simply. I think people making over $125,000 should pay more tax, but THEY don't think so. THEY see people making over $300,000 as a better target. It all depends on your point of view, I guess.

My sister spent an extra four years going to medical school, plus three years more as an intern and resident, and now she's earning almost $150,000. She's also still paying almost $2000 per month in student loans. She doesn't feel "rich", and she doesn't think she should have to pay even more for government services either. She gets pretty angry when we tell her it's fair for her to be charged more because she makes more. She says she's already taxed almost $1,000 per month on just the money she earns to pay her student loans (because she's got to earn $36,000 just to pay the $24,000 in loan payments), and those loans were the only way she could become a doctor. A mechanic can deduct his tools, but she can't deduct her school.

Julie also thinks there ought to be some financial reward for all the extra work and sacrifice she made, but she's not that much better off after taxes and loan payments. She's an Obama supporter, but doesn't think it's reasonable for everybody to see her and people like her as the bank to fund all public services. She thinks she's already paying more than her "fair share" because she's paying several times as much tax as the average Eugene resident, and she's only doing that because she was willing to kill herself studying and working long hours for ten years. She says, "Yes, I should pay more, but shouldn't the people using most of the services pay SOMETHING towards them?" (She wants a sales tax.) I do see her point. I could have borrowed the money and made the sacrifices to go to professional school, I suppose, but I wasn't willing to work that hard. I wanted to get started with my life, and I was stupid enough to get a car that required me to make car payments, so I needed to have a better job :-)

My sister voted against the county income tax too. She was worried it would pass because it was designed to protect the low income from paying more. She was surprised when it went down so hard. Most of the people who voted against the tax would not have even paid any more tax, so I assume most of the voters never read the measure.

I do think we need to fund basic government services, but I don't see a solution that will work here. Many, maybe a quarter or more, of our citizens are anti-law enforcement and would not fund it even if the money was free. That group will always join with the anti-tax folks to kill law enforcement funding. The rest of the folks either don't think THEY should pay, or they want to tax corporations, and the corporations don't want to be here in the first place. I figure we're just not going to have much in the way of public safety, so we're all making adjustments in our lives and, like my sister and her husband, looking for other places to live.

And the voters have spoken. nearly 50-50 opposed/for the two. and green was always trustworthy, so your comment is somewhat confusing. at the same time, handy lied continuously about green's record and that's how he won. so let's see what happens now. we get what we deserve.