Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon school leaders are anticipating a dim budget forecast this Friday.

Over the last few weeks, though, district officials have been pressing their teachers and other staff to make early concessions, to get the budget process moving.

But as Rob Manning reports, many unions have balked - even as they’ve faced the consequences of the bad budget times.

It’s happened more than once in recent weeks that teachers in Oregon have had to leave their careers to chance. They were walked into an office. Numbers were drawn from a hat. The number might mean relief that their job was safe, or heartbreak that it was likely gone.

Evelyn Bellotti-Busch: “Yes, there were lots of butterflies in stomachs, there was tears.”

Evelyn Bellotti-Busch is the bargaining chair for the teachers’ union at East Portland’s Centennial School District.

Evelyn Bellotti-Busch: “That’s human nature, and that is what is going to happen when something like that happens.”

It’s been in contracts for years that teachers lose and regain their jobs based on seniority, then licensure, then competence, and then last - by random drawing.

Centennial superintendent, Bob McKean says declining state revenues led McKean to plan a fifteen percent cut to Centennial’s budget.

In spite of fighting to hold onto reserves the last few years, Centennial would still eliminate roughly one-eighth of the district’s teaching positions. But he says teachers could reduce layoffs, if they accepted a pay freeze.

Bob McKean: “When I think of the impact on our staff members who will not be able to find work once we terminate them, when I think of the compromised education our children will have as a result of lost programs, increased class size, and the possibility of lost days, asking staff to take a freeze is simply the morally responsible thing to do.”

Evelyn Bellotti-Busch: “Well in Centennial, we have told our members and the district that we are waiting for the projection that’s coming out on this Friday, May 15th.”

Again, that’s Evelyn Bellotti-Busch, with the Centennial teachers’ union.

Evelyn Bellotti-Busch: “Once that projection is set, we will be sitting down, discussing items with them.”

The lobbyist for the Oregon Parent-Teacher Association, Otto Schell, says his group wants to stick up for quality education, but is steering clear of debates over layoffs and concessions - that are happening all over the state.

Otto Schell: “We put inordinate pressure on teachers, principals and school boards to try to make decent programs go, where it’s really mission-threatening.”

School advocates blame Oregon’s tax structure and the terrible economy. Just as a sample: Beaverton may cut 100 positions to fill its anticipated 12 percent budget hole. Portland could eliminate 380 jobs, if it plugged its gap through layoffs alone.

Centennial’s plans call for cutting 50 of its 400 teacher positions. And that’s if tax revenues are on the high side of what’s expected.

Centennial head, Bob McKean says Oregon will be infamous again.

Bob McKean: “We’ve been looking at Vancouver’s public schools and hearing a lot of sorrow about the cuts they’re making, and they’re making cuts of about three to five percent. And they’re very small compared with what we’re talking about here. I don’t believe there will be another state that will have to cut their budgets at the magnitude that Oregon is faced with.”

Friday, Oregonians will hear new numbers from the state economist and a response from the governor. Legislative plans come out on Monday. Then, expect tough bargaining between administrators and unions, as school boards try to balance budgets that are a lot smaller than they’d like.