Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon legislative leaders released a worst-case scenario Friday for dealing with a massive budget shortfall.

Lawmakers are already facing a $3 billion budget gap in the next funding cycle.   Salem correspondent Chris Lehman reports that the new list details what to do if the gap gets even wider.

Legislative budget-writers asked state agencies to present ways they could trim spending by 30 percent.  The results aren’t pretty.  

Ten prisons shuttered.  More than a hundred state cops off the beat. Seven weeks lopped off the school year.  That last part is especially troubling to one of those budget writers -- Ashland Democratic Representative Peter Buckley.

Peter Buckley:  “That stuff really scares the hell out of me.  And I really think that I’m going to do everything I possibly can to try to hold things together so we’re minimizing those kind of layoffs, those kind of impacts.”

Lawmakers say they’ll plug a big part of the hole with remaining federal stimulus money and part of the state’s rainy day fund.  

They’ve scheduled a series of public hearings around the state to let Oregonians make their case for why some programs should stay, and others should go.

Majority Democrats will release their budget proposal next month.

Online:

Links to the 30% cuts proposed by each state agency