Cascade Policy Institute

KYKN radio host, Bill Post spoke with Cascade Communications Coordinator Sarah Ross on Thursday to discuss the evolution of technology and a need for competition in education.

KMED host Bill Meyer spoke with Cascade Senior Policy Analyst Steve Buckstein about the philosophy of right to work, education unions, and the Eagle Point School District teacher strikes.

By Diana Moore

 

This article by the Freedom Foundation’s Diana Moore was originally published on GettingSmart.com.

 

State budgets have been hurting in a bad way. Across the country, legislatures continue to struggle to close deficits while still providing essential services. While cuts have been necessary, the wrong cuts can be devastating and ironically, very costly.

 

On the chopping block time and again has been online learning. This is due to the fact that, financially speaking, there’s a common misunderstanding about how online learning fits into public education. Unfortunately, it is viewed as an extra program, something schools and taxpayers pay more to offer. In reality, online and blended schools are simply alternative methods of delivering a public education. But because of this misunderstanding, legislators continue to go to online learning when making cuts.

 

So why is online learning a costly cut? There are three unique costs when budget cuts force an online program to close.

 

First, cutting funding to online programs can actually cost taxpayers more money.

 

When reduced funding forces an online program to close its doors, it’s likely the majority of students will return to traditional public schools. Each state has its own funding mechanism for online schools, but it’s typically safe to say digital programs receive funding from fewer sources than traditional schools and are therefore more cost-effective. (For example, in Washington, online schools typically don’t receive any local levy funding.)

 

Thus costs increase when students who formerly attended an online school are forced to transfer to a traditional school. In this situation, the only savings comes if students choose to opt out of the public school system altogether and attend a private school or homeschool. Students leaving the public school system should never be considered a viable cost-savings measure.

 

But even more important than the increased expense is the cost to students and their futures when online programs are cut.

 

While simply an alternative to traditional public school (and not an add-on), online programs have the ability to offer much more than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. They create opportunities where none exist, allowing students in every corner of America to get state-of-the-art instruction from world class teachers in subjects their local schools might not be able to offer.

 

They provide flexibility and customization that isn’t possible in a classroom of 30 students with a single teacher and a whiteboard.

In a nutshell, online learning opens a world of opportunity to every student wherever Internet access is available.

 

When an online school is forced to close due to funding cuts, the door to that world of opportunity is slammed shut. Kids are sentenced back to the 19th century education model their great-grandparents used.

 

When state policymakers cut online learning, taxpayers pay more and students get less.

 

The third cost of cutting online programs is to the state that moves backward in the education race while the rest of the country and world press on.

 

The only direction any society can afford to move in education is forward. That’s why digital learning—in all its forms—must be a priority if this generation and the next are to compete in today’s global idea economy and become tomorrow’s leaders.

 

 

Visit Cascadepolicy.org for more about online learning in Oregon and why Oregon’s legislature should continue to support expanding online learning options for public schools and public charter schools.

 

*Diana Moore is senior education analyst at the Freedom Foundation and director of the iLearn Project. She is a guest contributor for Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy organization. This article was originally published on GettingSmart.com.

The Oregonian on Sunday examined TriMet’s deteriorating finances and called attention to high-cost union contracts, first approved in 1994, as the starting point of the decline. Due to the compounding effect of these contracts, TriMet now spends $1.63 in benefits for every $1.00 spent on wages, and the agency has more than $1.2 billion in unfunded actuarially accrued liabilities for promised retirement benefits.

 

As a result, transit service has been cut by 14% in the past four years, and more cuts are due beginning September.

 

What was revealing in the Oregonian feature was how no one was willing to accept responsibility. At any point during an 18-year period, dozens of people served on the TriMet Board or in top management positions, and they could have demanded change. But they didn’t.

 

Of course, leadership starts at the top, and it’s the governor who appoints the TriMet Board. In August 1994, then-Governor Barbara Roberts met with the TriMet board chair, Loren Wyss, who strongly objected to the draft contract. Instead of supporting him, she forced him off the board.

 

The legacy of that decision is a terminally dysfunctional business model at TriMet. Someone on the TriMet board needs to have the courage to say that. But who will do so when it’s so much easier to remain silent?

Gerard Joseph Lebreque talks with Cascade Policy Institute about his struggles with regulations on juniper and his life in rural Oregon.

His work can be found at: http://www.creationsbyjoseph.com/

 

Cascade Senior Policy Analyst Steve Buckstein talked with KPAM host Victoria Taft about his last commentary, “Rescue children from our burning school system.”

By Susan Gore

Freedom fighter Vaclav Havel’s recent death reminded freedom lovers everywhere that no matter how entrenched rulers seem to be, they are vulnerable to so-called “powerless” citizens who in fact are not powerless when they refuse to surrender their consciences. The lessons of his life can speak to us this election season, as we debate competing visions for the direction of our state and our country, the limits of government power, and what we expect of our elected officials and of ourselves as citizens.

 

Vaclav Havel’s perseverance in speaking his conscience played a crucial part in an awakening that led to Czechoslovakia’s 1989 Velvet Revolution and the establishment of a free republic. After four decades of Soviet control of Czechoslovakia, and freshly released from prison, Havel gave the presidential inaugural address on January 1, 1990.

 

The country was an ecological mess and in economic shambles, but Havel focused his remarks on the havoc worked upon the character of Czechoslovakians themselves. He told his battered people, “I assume that you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.”

 

“The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities.”

 

Although Havel was a playwright whose first love was theater, he became “…dedicated to trying to behave like a citizen, even where citizenship is degraded.” As a master writer he had a profound impact on Eastern Europe. He quickly prepared his essay The Power of the Powerless in 1977 for a secret meeting in Poland with Solidarity activists such as Zbygniew Bujak. Bujak recalled:

 

“This essay reached us at the Ursus factory in 1979 at a point when we felt we were at the end of the road….We began to doubt the purposefulness of what we were doing. Then came the essay by Havel. Reading it gave us the theoretical underpinning for our activity. It maintained our spirits; we did not give up, and a year later it became clear that the party apparatus and the factory management were afraid of us. We mattered.…When I look at the victories of Solidarity…I see in them an astonishing fulfillment of the prophecies and knowledge contained in Havel’s essay.” (Open Letters: Selected Writings 1965 – 1990, by Vaclav Havel, edited by Paul Wilson, Vintage Books)

 

Solidarity was organized in 1980 and is largely credited with the 1990 overthrow of the Communist regime in Poland by the presidential election of Lech Walesa.

 

The “theoretical underpinning” of Havel’s essay is that totalitarianism is like a machine constructed with interchangeable parts: Government officials play the same roles, coming and going as the machine grinds on relentlessly. Havel told how the machine-like specter of totalitarianism stripped innocent individuals of their integrity when they complied with meaningless regulation. Thus, a master beer brewer miserably made bad beer in the state factory, students reluctantly learned Russian, writers had recourse to underground publications, and unlicensed musicians could only perform illegally.

 

All tyrannies seek to divest individuals of their power by imposing a wedge of tension between inner truth and outer behavior. In The Power of the Powerless, Havel’s fictitious example is a vegetable-seller, a greengrocer who was required to place a “Workers of the World Unite” sign next to his tomatoes, lest his son be denied entrance to the university.

 

Why would totalitarianism react viciously to the simple omission of a sign next to some tomatoes? Because, just as a child ends the entire parade by asking why the emperor has no clothes, one person pointing to truth threatens a bureaucratic house of cards entirely based on lies. Cumulative instances of honesty – genuine art, competence, trusting friendships, verified information – wear down tyranny like waves eroding the foundation of a sand castle so the whole structure crumples.

 

Those who survive intact morally by choosing truth may pay a price physically. Havel never recovered from the pneumonia he contracted during his four years in prison. Yet, Havel’s inaugural remarks targeted the more toxic effect lies have on people: meaninglessness, loss of genuine friendship, and so on. We lose what makes us human. Writers employ such terms as “truncated individuals,” “empty cores,” and “nobody in the building” to describe the loss of inner integrity due to complying with lies.

 

Vaclav Havel was as surprised as anybody when the USSR left Czechoslovakia in 1989:

 

“When you try to act in accordance with your conscience, when you try to speak the truth, when you try to behave like a citizen, even in conditions where citizenship is degraded, it won’t necessarily lead anywhere, but it might.”

 

The challenge in dissenting from tyranny is to persevere in what we believe is right even though we cannot be sure of the outward result. There is a price to pay for standing for our principles, but the reward is the treasure of personal integrity. Vaclav Havel’s words ring true for us today.

 

*Susan Gore is founder of Wyoming Liberty Group and a guest contributor for Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker is a larger-than-life figure fighting for what he calls the “Most Important Civil Right of All – equal access to high quality education.”

Last week Booker gave an inspiring keynote address before the American Federation for Children, a national school choice organization. He said his strong support for school choice stems from the options he was afforded in his own life-  options denied to millions of children because their ZIP codes determine what schools they must attend.

A Black Democrat himself, Booker made it clear he is disappointed that “his president” hasn’t yet joined him in supporting school choice for every family, not just for those he calls “the connected and elected.”

Not surprisingly, the left was upset that Booker would speak before a group partially funded by what it considers right-wingers. Booker slapped those concerns aside in his talk, making it clear that to him school choice is not a left/right or partisan issue, but one of equal rights.

But, the heat Mayor Booker took from the left last week pales in comparison with the heat he took last month. Ignoring his security team’s advice, he ran into a burning building to save his neighbor trapped in the flames. He rescued the woman and then went to the hospital with second-degree burns and smoke inhalation.

Cory Booker is a genuine hero. Not just to the woman he saved from that fire, but to the millions of poor and minority children trapped in a life of disappointment and failed dreams by what, in effect, is our burning public school system. Booker is trying to rescue those children, too. Please join him by making full school choice a reality in your community.
Addendum: On May 8th Cory Booker tweeted about another education hero I wrote about recently. Booker said to Salman Khan: You’re an American Hero – Watch the video.

Please join us for Cascade’s monthly Policy Picnic featuring CPI Board member Michael Barton.

We at Cascade Policy Institute fashion ourselves a libertarian think tank. This description is often misunderstood or ignored, but it is important to us because our goal is to advance liberty in the face of coercion from both the right and the left.

In this discussion Michael hopes to describe what it means (to him) to be a libertarian, how that system of beliefs differs from both the conservative and liberal worldviews, and how Cascade Policy Institute hopes to ally itself with elements of both the right and the left in order to advocate for an Oregon that is both more free and more prosperous.

Admission is free. Please bring your own lunch. Coffee and cookies will be served. Space is limited to ten guests on a first come, first served basis, so sign up early. To RSVP, email Patrick Schmitt at patrick@cascadepolicy.org or call 503-242-0900.

Please join us for Cascade’s monthly Policy Picnic. Dr. Bill Conerly will lead a discussion of philosophy and economics in public policy, exploring the need to consider fundamental principles when forming public policy conclusions.

Dr. Conerly is an economic consultant and chairman of the board of Cascade Policy Institute. Before entering the business world, he taught economics and public policy at the college level.

Admission is free. Please bring your own lunch. Coffee and cookies will be served. Space is limited to ten guests on a first come, first served basis, so sign up early. To RSVP, email Patrick Schmitt at patrick@cascadepolicy.org or call 503-242-0900.

By Todd Myers

“From outside in the fields came a sickening smack of an axe on a tree.
Then we heard the tree fall. The very last Truffula tree of them all.”
–From The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss

This spring, a motion picture version of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax hit the big screen with a not-so-subtle environmental message about the threat timber harvesting poses to the environment. Published in 1971, the book tells the story of a business, led by the “Once-ler,” that cuts down all the trees in the Truffula forest, destroying wildlife habitat, the air, and water in the process.

The Lorax, a friendly, furry creature that “speaks for the trees,” announces what he thinks has caused this catastrophe, scolding the businessman, “Sir, you are crazy with greed.”

Forty years after the book was published, however, a different story has been written in forests across the globe. Rather than being at odds, the Once-ler and the Lorax have found a common interest in making sure forests grow and expand―and many of the world’s forests have benefitted.

In the industrialized world, instead of the scarcity Seuss predicted, forests are plentiful. Last year was the International Year of the Forest, and the United Nations offered some good news. For the last two decades, total land area covered by forest in the Northern Hemisphere―where forestry is particularly active―has increased.

Despite the implication that economic growth, or as Seuss has the Once-ler say, “biggering, and biggering, and biggering,” would lead to environmental destruction, the nations where growth has been most steady are the ones enjoying the best environmental outcomes.

Not only are nations in the Northern Hemisphere seeing forestland expand, but wood is increasingly recognized as one of the most environmentally friendly building materials.

At the University of Washington, researchers compared the environmental impact of building with either wood, concrete, or steel. The hands-down winner for lower energy use, less waste and less water use was wood. While concrete and steel can be mined only once, trees are constantly replacing themselves.

One thing Seuss got right was that once the Once-ler cut all the trees down, his business went down with them. Foresters understand this. Destroying a forest by cutting down every last tree makes no sense, and so there are more trees in American forests today than there were just a few decades ago.

Indeed, the economic value of the trees ensures forests are replanted and available for wildlife and future generations. Even companies not planning on harvesting in 60 years recognize that land with 20-year-old trees is more valuable than land with no trees at all. Replanting isn’t just good for the environment, it’s good for business.

This is not to say the world’s forests are forever safe, or to dismiss the impact deforestation has on the environment. The enemy in these areas, however, is more likely to be poverty than industry. Few people realize the most common use for trees across the globe is as firewood to heat a home and cook a meal. These trees are not cut down by machines, but by people struggling to meet the needs of daily living.

It is true that government regulation of forestry is stricter today than it was forty years ago. It is also true, however, that we are still harvesting a significant amount of wood in the Northern Hemisphere, while preserving vast areas for future generations. Sawmills are making the most of every part of the tree, literally using lasers to measure the best way to saw the log. Technology has made effective regulation possible by using every tree wisely and limiting short-term pressures to overharvest.

Forty years after he sprang from the imagination of Dr. Seuss, the Lorax would be happy to see that, far from disappearing, many forests today are thriving. They are there because the real story of the forests has not been about an unending battle between the fictional Lorax and the hard-hearted Once-ler, but a friendship that understands that both benefit from healthy forests that future generations can enjoy.

Todd Myers is the environmental director at Washington Policy Center. He has more than a decade of experience in environmental policy and is the author of the book Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism Is Harming the Environment. He is a guest contributor for Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research center.

 

The slogan “Keep Portland Weird” was reinforced recently when the city threatened to fine two local companies a total of $895,000 for—get this—offering to charge prices the city deems are “too low.”
 
You see, a 2009 law requires that limousine and sedan rides to or from Portland International Airport must cost you at least $50. Limos and sedans also must charge you at least 35 percent more than what taxis would charge for a trip anywhere else in the city. And, such taxi alternatives can’t pick you up any sooner than an hour after you call.
 
This new real-life Portlandia chapter started when Fiesta Limousine and Towncar.com offered $32 one-way trips to the airport through the daily deal website Groupon.com. City enforcers immediately threatened them with huge fines and suspension of their operating permits. The companies canceled the promotions and refunded their customers.
 
But, the companies did something else, too. Last Thursday they filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Portland’s limousine and sedan regulations. Their attorney with the national public interest law firm Institute for Justice put it this way:
 

“These laws amount to nothing more than naked economic protectionism…they have nothing to do with protecting the riding public. They have everything to do with protecting the city’s taxicab companies from competition and driving up prices for consumers.”

 
Portland has a long history of protecting favored businesses while harming consumers through such anti-competitive regulations. Hopefully, this time the courts will slap down the regulators and cut the rest of us a break.
 
Of course, the City Council can do the right thing first and repeal these regulations. Before voting for your favorite mayoral or council candidate, you might ask them whose side they’re on: favored businesses or yours?

Victoria Taft spoke with Senior Policy Analyst Steve Buckstein on Monday about public transportation and the Institute for Justice lawsuit against the City of Portland because of its towncar regulations.

We sat down with Cascade’s Publications Director, Kathryn Hickok, to discuss her latest commentary, “Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing.”

Click here to read her commentary.

By Trent England

On April 19, 1775, a group of ordinary, small-town Americans stood up in defense of their property, their community, and their ideas. First at Lexington and then at Concord, they put their very lives in danger. A new online program called “We The People” offers basic information about American principles and the pivotal events that forged our nation at a time when reconnecting with those principles is once again essential. It begins with the Battle of Lexington….

 

Most people were sound asleep when the alarm came. Men and women roused themselves and heard the news: British soldiers were marching toward their town. Each man and woman faced a decision. They could ignore the alarm, perhaps pretending not to hear, and remain under warm blankets safe from the cold and uncertain night. Or they could rise up, make their preparations, and step out into the misty darkness.

 

In the town of Lexington, Massachusetts, men and women rose up. They lit candles with shaky fingers and tried not to wake their children. John Parker—a farmer and the elected captain of the Lexington militia—dressed quickly, took his flintlock musket from the wall, and went out. He was older than his 45 years, frail and sick, and still a trusted and resolute man. He walked in the darkness to the triangle-shaped field, the town green, which sat beside the road from Boston to Concord.

 

Anna Harrington sent her husband, Daniel, to the green. She knew that her father, Robert Munroe, a veteran of the war against the French and Indians, would be there as well. At least eight Munroes and nine Harringtons assembled on the Lexington green. By 2 a.m., as many as 130 men were standing in the dark in the wet grass on the green.

 

The odds were against them. The soldiers were well armed and well trained; many were hardened veterans. The townspeople were the opposite—mostly ordinary men and women with small farms or businesses and large families. By offering any opposition to the soldiers, the people risked their lives, possessions, families—everything. Yet, hundreds and later thousands would step away from ordinary lives and decide that they, too, were willing to stand, to fight, even to die.

 

The people of Lexington had hurried, and now they waited. With no sign of approaching troops, Captain Parker released his men to wait indoors. They gathered in nearby homes and at Buckman’s Tavern adjacent to the green. It was 4:30 a.m. when one of Captain Parker’s lookouts frantically rode into town yelling that the soldiers were just behind him. Young William Diamond beat his drum to summon back the militia. Sergeant William Munroe hastily lined up the returning men in two ranks.

 

British light infantry—troops selected for their strength and stamina—entered Lexington at a double-quick march. Each infantryman carried the five-foot-long “Brown Bess” musket. Each musket was loaded with gunpowder and a .75 caliber lead ball and topped with a 17-inch steel bayonet. The soldiers were miserable—tired of sitting around in Boston, wet after wading ashore from boats at the beginning of the night’s march, and cold. But they were professional soldiers ready for a fight and convinced of their superiority against this rabble of farmers.

 

Three British officers on horseback rode forward yelling orders at the men of Lexington: “Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, and disperse.” No more than 70 of Captain Parker’s men had reached the field; they faced several hundred red-coated light infantry with a thousand and more on the road behind them. Captain Parker decided it was futile to fight, but he and his men refused to surrender their arms. Just as the militia began to withdraw under a hail of British curses, there was a shot.

A few overeager British infantry fired randomly and to no effect. Then a massed volley of British fire ripped through the Lexington men. Jonas Parker, the Captain’s cousin, returned fire but he was already gravely wounded. He sank to his knees frantically trying to reload; before he could raise his musket a second time he was stabbed to death with a bayonet.

 

Other militiamen fired, others were hit. Jonathan Harrington was shot in the chest as his wife, Ruth, and their eight-year-old son looked on from their home. As Jonathan staggered toward his front door, his wife rushed out to him. He fell and died before she reached him.

 

Seven men were killed and nine wounded on the Lexington green that morning. At least one more would be killed in fighting later that day. This was a quarter of the men who stood there—who stood up for their community and for what they believed.

 

As the British marched away from the bloodied town green, the Lexington fight appeared purposeless and inconsequential. Yet, the sacrifice at Lexington changed everything; it delayed the British and forged in a moment the resolve that would become manifest at Concord. There the unthinkable would happen—the British would turn, flee back through Lexington into Boston, and within a year surrender the city altogether.

 

Once again we hear the call for America to “return to her Founding principles.” The ideas that forged our heritage―like limited government, federalism, and religious liberty―matter only to the extent that we understand them and apply them to today’s challenges. The American story is a gripping story with real heroes—people who made choices, took risks, made mistakes, and, in the end, set the stage for the American nation. Today, ordinary Americans―many of whom have never been involved in politics―are getting involved in their local governments, taking a stand in their communities, and joining with their neighbors to defend their rights as Americans. The “We the People” project hopes to assist today’s patriots in defending those principles for America’s next generation of citizens.

Tax Freedom Day arrived this year on April 17, coincidentally the same day tax returns were due. Tax Freedom Day is a calendar-based measure of Americans’ cumulative tax bill. It is calculated as the day on which Americans have worked long enough to pay all their taxes. Americans worked 107 days to earn enough money to pay this year’s combined federal, state, and local taxes. These taxes include personal income taxes, payroll taxes, corporate income taxes, and property and sales taxes.

 

However, this is only what Americans actually pay, not what government spends. According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, “if the federal government raised taxes enough to close the budget deficit—an additional $1.014 trillion—Tax Freedom Day would come on May 14 instead of April 17. That’s an additional 27 days of government spending paid for by borrowing.”

 

Americans currently pay more in taxes ($4.04 trillion) than they do on food, clothing, and housing combined ($3.89 trillion). The saying goes, you should “work to live, not live to work.” But the more government grows, the more Americans are working less to live and more to pay for runaway government spending. That leaves fewer resources to invest in the real engines of economic growth: private sector businesses that create jobs and produce goods and services for a market fueled by Americans’ hard-earned purchasing power.

 

 

Testimony of John A. Charles, Jr.

 

Before the TriMet Board of Directors

 

Regarding the Proposed FY 2012-13 Budget

 

 

 

April 25, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

There are some elements of the proposed budget that move TriMet in the right direction. I support the proposals to eliminate the free-rail zone and reduce streetcar funding. Rail passengers have been coddled for far too long and these changes will require them to finally put some skin in the game.

 

 

 

Notwithstanding this progress, the budget overall has serious problems that the Board needs to address. The first is the assumption that management will win its protracted dispute with the ATU. Management has been forecasting this outcome for years, and has consistently been wrong. Examples of past predictions include the following:

 

 

 

• TriMet press release, April 13, 2011: “The FY2012 budget assumes that a new Working and Wage Agreement with the ATU has benefits more in line with peer agencies, and consistent with those contained in TriMet’s July 2010 Final Offer.”

 

 

 

• TriMet FY 2012 budget message, July 2011: “A critically important assumption upon which TriMet’s financial forecast and the FY 12 Adopted Budget are based is that TriMet enters into a Working and Wage Agreement WWA) with the Amalgamated Transit Union, probably through the binding arbitration process, and that the wages and benefits are consistent with those contained in TriMet’s July 2010 Final Offer….” 

 

 

 

• TriMet press release, October 26, 2011: “The contract expired in 2009 and both parties are now heading to interest arbitration scheduled for mid-January 2012.

 

 

 

• TriMet FY 13 budget message, April 2012: “…the FY 13 proposed budget includes a $12 million revenue increase/expenditure reduction package, based on the assumption of a labor arbitration decision favorable to TriMet.”

 

 

 

Given that every recent prediction about the ATU contract has been wrong, it might be time to change the forecast. A more prudent forecast would be that the ATU wins, creating a $5 million imbalance for FY 13. Perhaps that should be addressed now in the current draft budget.

 

 

 

The second big problem with the budget is the continued fantasy that rail construction has no harmful effects on bus service. Some board members may not be aware that in February 2011, TriMet succeeded in getting the Oregon Transportation Commission to approve $13 million in scarce OTC “flex funds” for the Milwaukie light rail project, by promising that TriMet will “agree to refrain from requesting Capital bus Program funds for bus purchases for the next three biennia…”  This deal was made even though TriMet had been so desperate for new buses that it had put a $125 bond measure on the ballot the previous November. My testimony to the OTC is attached.

 

 

 

TriMet management simply does not value bus service; all the glamour is perceived to be in the ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new train lines. In FY 13 TriMet will sell bonds for PMLR and thus incur $3 million in new debt service. The agency is already paying more than $25 million in annual debt service for previous light rail bonds. This debt is a major reason why bus service has been cut by 13% in recent years, even though buses move 2/3 of TriMet customers each day.

 

TriMet has never demonstrated that the alleged “operating cost savings” of rail transit offsets the debt service and other “opportunity costs” associated with new rail construction.

 

 

 

There’s a very simple solution: terminate all rail expansion plans. It doesn’t matter how attractive rail may have once seemed; moving forward, the capital costs cannot be justified. It is indefensible to impose service cuts year after year, while spending more than $205 million/mile for tiny expansions of the rail empire (7.3 miles for PMLR and 2.9 miles for the CRC).

 

 

 

A third point is that the proposed budget once again hides the true cost of labor, by planning for another token payment into the OPEB trust fund of $865,760. While this is better than the FY 12 contribution of $410,000, the level recommended by the outside auditor last July was $77.7 million.

 

 

 

The unfunded actuarial accrued liability for OPEB is at least $876 million, and because TriMet is allowed to carry this debt off-book the public naturally assumes that all is well when the agency announces that it has a “balanced budget” each year. This practice of shifting obligations downstream simply sets up a ticking time bomb for future TriMet board members.

 

 

 

While making the full ARC payment of $77 million would be impossible now, a substantial down payment – with the tough decisions it would force right now – would have the medicinal effect of waking up the public to the seriousness of the problem.

 

 

 

Finally, attached is a chart showing the juxtaposition of TriMet’s huge revenue increases since 2004 with the steady decline in transit service.  This is a disgrace, yet the Board continues to accept it year after year, without even considering fundamental changes in strategy.

 

 

Business as usual is not going to work anymore. It’s time for board members to stop acting like victims and start taking control of the organization.

 

 Click here to see February 14 OTC Testimony.

TriMet Financial Resources, 2004-2013 (000s)

 

 

FY 04/05

FY 08/09

FY 10/11

FY 11/12 (est)

FY 12/13 (budget)

% Change 04/05-12/13

Passenger fares

$   59,487

$   90,016

$   96,889

$   104,032

$117,166

+97%

Payroll tax revenue

$171,227

$209,089

$224,858

$232,832

244,457

+43%

Total operating resources

$308,766

397,240

$399,641

$476,364

$465,056

+51%

Total Resources

$493,722

$888,346

$920,044

$971,613

$1,111,384

+125%

 

Note: TriMet payroll tax rate increased effective 1/1/05, and will rise .01% every January through 2024.

 

 Annual Fixed Route Service Trends since 2004

 (light rail, bus, commuter rail)

 

2004

2006

2008

2010

2011

% change

             

Peak veh

625

606

613

618

601

-3.8%

Revenue hrs

143,784

137,973

144,469

133,776

128,435

-10.7%

Vehicle hrs

2,621,657

2,476,114

2,532,453

2,375,802

2,247,113

-14.3%

 

Sources: Annual budget documents; monthly TriMet performance reports.

 

In her first weekly interview on the Bill Post Show, Cascade’s communications coordinator Sarah Ross talked with Bill about Oregon’s slipping economic outlook and the benefits of a right-to-work system.

John Charles presented his views on the proper use of road tolling in Oregon with ODOT’s Long Range Planning Manager,  Robert Maestre, and the Chair of the Birdshill CPO/NA, Charles Ormsby, during Birdshill’s panel discussion in Lake Oswego earlier this week.

 

Video by Jim Karlock.

Talk show host, Victoria Taft, talked with John Charles Monday about light rail use for the Expo Center’s Cirque de Soleil event, the Sustainability Center, and the future of TriMet.