State budget committee recommends deep cuts


The three co-chairs of Oregon’s Ways and Means Committee recommended deep cuts to schools and other programs to deal with the state’s severe budget shortfall.

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The three co-chairs of Oregon’s Ways and Means Committee recommended deep cuts to schools and other programs to deal with the state’s severe budget shortfall.

The lawmakers said that the cuts to help fill a $3.5 billion budget gap aren’t easy to make, but programs will need to make a “shared sacrifice.”

Their $5.7 billion in proposed school spending is slightly more than Gov. John Kitzhaber suggested two months ago. But it’s still $1 billion short of what schools say they need to continue operating as they do now, and education lobbyists quickly announced their disappointment.

“We are trying to do the best we can for Oregonians with what they’ve given us in revenue,” said Sen. Richard Devlin, the committee’s Senate co-chair. Reps. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, and Dennis Richardson, R-Central Point, are the House co-chairs.

Read more at Businessweek.

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