Oregon Legislature tackles education issues

Gresham-area legislators are taking a turn from last year and focusing on education in this year’s session.

According to State Rep. Greg Mathews, D-Gresham, education reforms in the last session were “bull rushed,” meaning that there were not enough discussions and time to vote on budget and education reforms. This year, the Legislature is very serious on education issues, according to first-timer Rep. Chris Gorsek, D-Troutdale, also an MHCC instructor.

At a town hall-style meeting held Tuesday evening at MHCC, state legislators Gorsek, Matthews and State Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson, D-Gresham, discussed key issues for the 2013 session. The issue that seemed to be on the people’s minds during the meeting was PERS, or Public Employee Retirement System (PERS).

Gorsek explained there are three tiers to PERS. The first tier is any public employee hired before 1996, tier two is any employee hired between 1996 and Aug. 28, 2003, and the third tier is made up of all public employees hired after that date. The tier you are in helps determines the benefits you get when you retire.

For example, something being discussed at a legislative level is how each year the PERS board determines what level of earnings to credit to members regular accounts, which are accounts given back to members upon retirement. Tier one members were promised 8 percent; when times were good, this was possible, but nowadays there is not enough money in the regular account to allow this. “These are some serious costs for people hired before ‘03,” Gorsek said.

Getting money to fund these reforms and to help students pay less for tuition is reliant upon how much money is in the operating budget. In 2007 there was $500 million in the state operating budget; in 2011 there was only $395 million; now the governor has recommended $428 million. It is still lower than previous years, but is bouncing back slowly. State Sen, Rod Monroe, who is also an MHCC board member, said, “I will make sure that it doesn’t go below that and I hope to make it go up if I can.”

Every college is trying to get a bigger piece of that pie, including MHCC. Associated Student Government (ASG) President William Miller is planning on lobbying to the Legislature, with a couple other MHCC students, to try and get more tuition for students and textbook affordability.

Miller said, “Our slogan is education, not incarceration,” referring to how it generally costs $10,000 per year for students to go to school but it costs the state an average of $30,000 to house a prison inmate.

From 2005-2006 to 2011-2012, tuition has increased 50 percent. According to Amber Hastings, an Oregon Community College Student Association (OCCSA) field organizer, the two major factors for students who want to go to college is affordability and access.

Another issue going around the Legislature is the tuition equity act. This act allows undocumented students, who have been raised here and have gone to school here, the ability to get in-state tuition.

Gorsek said, “If you have kids brought here illegally and they went to a U.S. high school for the past three years, to say they are somehow less important is just not fair in case they are actual citizens.”

The tuition equity act is being considered in the House of Representatives.

Also on the legislative table is whether colleges should have a police force on campus. A bill would not make it mandatory to have a police force, but make it a possibility. Gorsek said, “Safety on campus is important. I fully support that (the bill allowing colleges to have a police force on campus) especially if it makes the students feel safe.”

According to Gorsek, because the operating budget deals with more than just schooling, students should be worrying about more than tuition.