Senate Bill 283 A was crafted to address school workforce shortages. Sharie Lewis, Parkrose’s director of business services and operations, said the bill’s costs will be a disaster for school districts if the Legislature doesn’t add funding.
“It’s going to make even more workforce shortages because we’re not going to have enough to pay teachers,” she said.
The State School Fund debate starts with the cost of maintaining schools’ current programs and staff. But that debate becomes meaningless if the Legislature redefines what is expected of schools.
Legislative Highlights is offering weekly articles, “Funding Oregon’s Future,” to help school board members understand the forces pulling at the State School Fund. SB 283 A proposes perhaps this session’s biggest impact on school budgets. It includes no extra funding for schools even as it calls on them to increase pay and benefits.
The House Education Committee held two informational meetings last week to go through the omnibus bill with more than 30 sections. The bill includes creating a 20% pay differential for staff working with students in special education, setting a five-hour-per-day minimum for classified staff and requiring substitute teachers to be district employees. The bill would also set in motion statewide education workforce minimum salary schedules.
The Legislative Fiscal Office has not completed its analysis of the bill’s costs, according to an April 4 statement.
School business officials estimate that if the bill is fully implemented, it would increase school costs by hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to Jackie Olsen, Oregon Association of School Business Officials executive director. The exact costs are difficult to quantify because schools could also choose to cut staff.
Lewis said staff cuts would be unavoidable for Parkrose. The district is already looking at more than a $2 million budget shortfall if the State School Fund for 2023-25 stays at $9.9 billion. SB 283 would add millions in additional salary, benefit and pension costs.
“This is not going to be pretty for school districts,” said Lewis, a board member for the Association of School Business Officials International.
SB 283 A is in the Joint Ways and Means Committee, which deals with all bills that involve funding. The committee could amend the bill to add funding or it could decide to move forward only some bill sections.
OSBA Legislative Services Director Lori Sattenspiel is part of an advisory group of education advocates who have been working on the bill since 2021. From a school board members’ perspective, the bill is a mixed bag, Sattenspiel said, as would be expected with input from so many interests. Some things, such as letting retirees work and collect pension benefits, are popular with school districts. Other areas, such as making it harder to dismiss classified employees, interfere with local decision-making, she said.
Sattenspiel said that when the bill’s proposals were made, the state was expecting more money to be available. But slowing economic growth has led to a proposed $9.9 billion State School Fund, which school business officials say will already lead to many districts making cuts. SB 283 A would make it worse, working against the bill’s stated purpose, Sattenspiel said.
Schools are having trouble filling spots now partly because of difficult and stressful working conditions. Mandatory pay raises to attract workers will fail if schools then must cut their workforces, forcing those who remain to work even harder, she said.
Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, led the legislative work group that put together SB 283 A. During his House committee presentation, he noted he hoped funding would be added.
Republican Rep. Emily McIntire, an Eagle Point School Board member, repeatedly challenged whether SB 283 A would actually help.
“This bill is full of a lot of really great, superexpensive things, and there is currently no money to it,” she said.
– Jake Arnold, OSBA
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Previously in the series: Education advocates hone State School Fund case
