Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon school advocates got promising news Wednesday. The U.S. Senate voted 61-to-38 to overcome Republican-led opposition to a school-spending bill.

An earlier version of the bill had failed to gather enough votes to break a Republican filibuster.

The education bill is for $10 billion nationally.

That translates into at least $100 million for Oregon. The state's largest district, Portland Public Schools, had been counting on at least $6 million to balance its budget.

Portland's school board finance chair, David Wynde was excited about the bill's progress today.

David Wynde: "I am very happy to hear that there were votes to move this forward. It's not a completely done deal, yet, there's still legislation action that needs to take place in Congress. But the fact that it has a positive vote at this point, is good news for kids in Portland, Oregon and good news for kids in Portland, Maine, and I say that because there were two Republican senators in Maine that voted for it. And it's good news for kids all across the United States."

State education officials had said earlier today that the bill would mean roughly $175 per student in Oregon. But now they say that figure isn't firm. 

The U.S. Department of Education has said the spending would fund about 1,600 teaching jobs in Oregon.

Oregon would also benefit substantially from health care spending that advanced today as part of the same bill.

The combined education health care bill still has several steps to go before it becomes law.