Want To Practice For The Upcoming Governor's Forum?

Capitol Currents:

Gubernatorial candidates John Kitzhaber and Chris Dudley can't seem to agree on a time and place for a debate. Each candidate insists his side has bent over backwards to accommodate the needs of the other. Who knows? Maybe they're each afraid of turning in a performance like last night's train wreck of an opening statement from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.

At this point, the only thing resembling a debate between the Democrat Kitzhaber and the Republican Dudley is set for September 25 in Eugene. It's more of a joint appearance than a debate. The sponsoring group, the League of Oregon Cities, has supplied each candidate (including the Constitution Party's Greg Kord and the Libertarian Party's Wes Wagner) with a list of questions in advance. As you may expect from an organization that represents local governments, the topics are generally focused on local government issues, including wastewater management and utility franchise fees. But according to a draft of questions released by the League, the candidates will also be grilled about how they'd balance the state budget in the face of a looming deficit, and how they'd encourage private sector job creation. Below, you can read the draft questions and decide how you would answer.





Introduction

Cities are Oregon’s economic engine. Seventy percent of Oregonians live in cities where 80% of the State’s income taxes are generated. 81% of employment is within cities. Projections have 76% of Oregonians living in cities by 2020. Cities provide the largest share of law enforcement at 62% of all law enforcement officers. At times, cities are and have been the only providers of 24 hour police coverage in parts of the State. All of the state colleges and universities are in cities, as well as 59 of 60 hospitals and 28 of 30 private colleges. Cities are where Oregon’s social and economic activity and community occur.


Local Government Partnership

The State, counties, and cities have shared responsibilities to the citizens of Oregon. Most citizens expect “government” to address needs and issues without compartmentalizing the responsibilities for the solution to one level of government. As an example, citizens do not differentiate among state, county, and city roads. They expect them to connect, be maintained, and safe without caring which unit of government is responsible for a specific road.

Questions to address:

What do you see as the appropriate relationship among the State, cities, and counties?

When elected, describe in detail how you plan to include local government officials in your decision-making process and what you will put in place to hold you accountable for representing the interests of local government.
Would you commit to meet with the LOC Board of Directors?


Tax Reform Measures 5/50

Limitations placed on property taxes by Measures 5 and 50 have resulted in the largest source of city revenues increasing at a lower rate than the inflation in city costs. This has prevented local government revenue raising ability from keeping up with the rising costs of providing essential services to citizens. This is especially true in light of increased State mandates on employee benefits, public contracting etc. City use of lodging taxes adopted after July, 2003 are limited by State law to only 30% of the taxes collected, even though cities with large tourism populations see significant impacts on the demands for city services related to that tourism.

Questions to address:

Do you support allowing local voters to approve local option levies longer than the current five year limitation and outside the limits of compression?

Many cities use their general fund to pay for essential police and fire public safety services. We fear that the state legislature will try to balance its budget by shifting costs and passing unfunded mandates.

Would you support allowing all cities to have the ability to determine how locally raised transient lodging taxes are used?

Can we count on you to:
• Not Shift programs and costs from the State to cities through unfunded mandates
• Honor the long term commitments to share alcoholic beverage and cigarette taxes reflecting the shared responsibilities for dealing with the issues those substances create and Not Raid shared revenue sources (local government’s share of tobacco, beer and wine, and 9-1-1 taxes)?

Economic Development

Cities play a vital role in creating and maintaining private sector jobs directly impacting state income tax revenues - over 80% of Oregon’s jobs located within city limits. Directly linked to the provision of jobs are necessary city services, roads, water, sewer, etc. The need for new or replacement infrastructure has grown statewide with population growth and aging of existing infrastructure. At the same time resources to replace and provide for new infrastructure has lagged both population growth and the need to replace aging infrastructure.

What specific ideas are you proposing to increase jobs or income levels of existing jobs, long term?

Would you work with cities on local economic development such as assisting with trade missions and meeting with businesses looking to locate in Oregon cities?

What solutions or new funding resources do you propose to mitigate our infrastructure crisis?

What would you do to create private sector jobs?
How do you propose to provide sustainable funding for state county and city transportation infrastructure?

Balancing the State Budget and Respecting Shared Revenue Commitments

The State faces a continuing budgetary challenge. Many estimates foresee a continuing imbalance between the projected costs of current state programs and the projected revenues that results in continuing challenges to producing a balanced budget.

How do you propose to solve the state’s fiscal crisis? Be specific about both revenue and expenditure changes. Are there specific programs you would suggest/support for downsizing/elimination?

State Shared Revenues represent a historical commitment by the state to local governments. Preemptions on city/county liquor, cigarette, 9-1-1, and gasoline taxes were imposed by the State along with the State’s promise to share State collected revenues from those soureces. These distributions have become vital to cities’ ability to meet the increased demands for local services including alcohol-related incident response, traffic impacts, and other public safety issues. Recently the liquor tax was increased without honoring that historical split even though the vast majority of alcohol law related enforcement is undertaken by city police and cities receive far less in alcohol tax revenues than they expend in alcohol related law enforcement.

As governor, will you support cities’ right to state shared revenues and pledge to veto any further cuts to state shared revenues or any increases to these items outside the state shared revenues formula?

Water/Wastewater

The need for new or replacement water and wastewater treatment infrastructure has grown statewide, with population increases and new business opportunities, while available state and federal funds (aside from one time stimulus infusion) have declined. Cities also face increasingly costly upgrades to water and wastewater treatment plants due to ever changing federal and state requirements. Even after investment in new plants, a new plant can be rendered out of compliance due to changed standards. Cities are unable to keep up with the costs of these upgrades without very large and in some cases unsustainable rate increases. One source of funding assistance has been the state revolving loan fund. This funding crisis directly impacts the creation and maintenance of jobs which require the necessary city infrastructure – roads, water, sewer, etc. Many cities hold water rights that are increasingly difficult to use notwithstanding their long held senior position. While cities use less than 10% of the water in Oregon, they have been the focus of a disproportionate burden of regulation. Similarly, the largest sources of water pollution continue to be agricultural and industrial activities, while cities bear a disproportionate share of the regulatory actions to remove miniscule amounts of substances with no appreciable change in water quality.

Do you support using lottery bonds to recapitalize state revolving funds for local drinking water and wastewater infrastructure? What solutions or new funding resources do you propose to mitigate our infrastructure crisis?

Would you veto legislation that would prevent cities from meeting current or future water demands by imposing new conditions on existing municipal water rights?

Would you support standards that apply for a defined period of time to allow amortization of plant improvements?

Franchise Fees/Rights-of-Way Question

Local government is charged with the responsibility of managing public properties on behalf of its residents. These public properties include city streets which also serve as rights-of-way for the provision of utility services (i.e. telecom, energy and cable). Consequently, cities are able to charge utility providers fees or taxes for use of the public rights-of-way. Revenues derived from the fees or taxes contribute significantly to a city’s general fund thereby allowing cities to provide meaningful services to residents. That said, changes in technology as well as legal and regulatory uncertainty are threatening both the revenue stream as well as local authority to manage these public properties.

Do you agree with the following statement? In managing public rights-of-way, local government should have the authority to receive compensation from entities that use those rights-of-way to provide services? Please explain your reasons for agreement or disagreement.

In light of budgetary challenges facing both state and local governments today, what is your attitude towards enabling cities to more effectively fend for themselves by:
a. Re-affirming local management control of public rights-of-way and
b. Loosening current statutory restrictions (i.e. revenue-based percentage caps on franchise and rights-of-way fees) on the ability of cities to raise revenue from product and service providers using city-owned rights-of-way?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width="1" height="1" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3320471128493510714-6634495115830602128?l=www.capitolcurrents.com" alt=""/></div>

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