Merkley: Oregon's Rural Counties Deserve a Long-Term Contract with the Federal Government

Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley tonight told the House Rural Policy Committee that the federal government had violated its contract with Oregonians by refusing to extend the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. The committee was considering HJM 100, encouraging Congress to renew the law.

“The federal government struck a deal with our counties,” Merkley said. “They told us we couldn’t cut the timber, but that they would pay to make up the difference. They have broken that deal.”

Despite attempts by Oregon’s Congressional delegation to pass a new version of the plan, the issue has not been resolved. Last year, Congress passed a one-year extension of the plan at a reduced funding level.

But counties say that one year of funding at a time will not help them the way a multi-year extension of the program would. They are left with the tough choice of spending all the money and hoping for more the next year, or only spending part of it – far less than they need – and saving the rest in the event the funds don’t come through down the road.

“When I was a child growing up near Roseburg, my parents worked at the mill. The importance of the timber economy in Oregon is personal for me,” Merkley said later. “Back then, it was the timber economy that was unstable and unpredictable. Now, rural Oregon families are finding out that the federal government is equally unpredictable and unreliable.”

In April, Merkley led a legislative delegation on a tour through five affected counties in southern Oregon. Local officials were unanimous in their assessment that failure to renew the program would mean drastic cuts in county services.

During the 2007session, the legislature redirected $50 million in state highway funds to counties affected by the loss of the county payments. But that is far short of what was needed. Following that legislative session, Merkley created the Rural Policy Committee to further study the issue.

“In Josephine County, they told us that they were going to have to shut down the juvenile facility, the library, cut the Sherriff’s department in half, cut the prosecutor’s office down to two attorneys,” Merkley said. “We need a united voice – a strong voice – to say, this is not acceptable.”

In December Congress came close to passing a multi-year extension of the program. That plan failed by one vote in the U.S. Senate. The latest proposal for extending the program came in President Bush’s budget, released earlier this week. The President has proposed funding the county payments program with $200 million over four years. That is less than a quarter of what Oregon’s counties need.

The Association of Oregon Counties, Oregon AFSCME, and other organizations expressed their support for the measure as well. At the hearing, AOC executive director Mike McArthur thanked Merkley for his commitment to the issue.

“He recognizes that this is not just a rural problem, it is a statewide problem,” McArthur said of Merkley.

Posted February 7, 2008
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