I would love to be talking this week about how we are going to fund schools in light of reduced Oregon revenue expectations or how we are going to address specific needs for special education and absenteeism.
Instead, this week again dragged me into talks on Senate Bill 916, which would offer unemployment benefits for striking workers.
The bill narrowly remained alive this week and is headed to the House Floor for a vote, rather than to Rules for further improvements. We are encouraging education advocates to press their legislators to vote no.
Amendments this week received a lot of attention, but they do not address the underlying problems this bill poses for school districts.
SB 916 passed out of the House Labor and Workplace Standards Committee on Wednesday, May 21, after over an hour of discussion. The committee approved the -A24 amendments (an unusually high number for amendments), which do two things:
- Specify that if the Oregon Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund is in bad shape, which hasn’t happened since the last major recession, that striking workers’ benefits will be capped at eight weeks rather than the usual 26 weeks.
- Change the language for school districts and education service districts from focusing on benefits received by the employee to benefits charged to the employing district/ESD.
The latter change makes it easier for schools to ensure compliance with the legislation. The language coming out of the Senate would have been implementable only if individual employees gave permission for the Employment Department to share information about their total benefits received with the employing district. We couldn’t, therefore, really guarantee that districts would get the information they needed to make the appropriate deductions. By shifting the language to benefits charged to the district, we avoid the barrier of needing employee permission to follow the law as written.
This K-12 change is appreciated from a clarity and compliance perspective, and it was brought forward in an attempt to respond to concerns OSBA and other partners raised earlier this week.
It does not reduce the administrative burden on districts, though. They will still be faced with adjusting individual employees’ pay. They just won’t have to wait for employees’ permission and then wait to receive additional information from the Oregon Employment Department. But the process of adjusting individual paychecks for an entire unit of workers would still be incredibly time-consuming (and therefore costly) for district offices.
This is a pretty dry policy change in such a controversial bill. It is truly the definition of a “technical fix.” It does nothing to reduce the impact on schools, nor does it shift OSBA’s position on the bill.
We still think SB 916 will create an expensive administrative burden on schools. We also think SB 916 will encourage more frequent and longer strikes, forcing school districts toward contracts they can’t afford.
Whatever the bill’s outcomes, it is guaranteed to take resources away from schools, and students will pay that price.
– Stacy Michaelson
OSBA Government Relations and Communications Director
[SM1]Let’s link to the coalition letter here
