By Kim Sordyl

Sordyl is a Portland employment attorney and formerly served as the secretary of state’s designee to the Oregon Board of Education.

Last week the Oregon House approved a new $2 billion tax on Oregon sales, very similar to the one voters rejected in 2016. Don't be fooled by its “for the kids” campaign. It’s a brilliant ruse: only big terrible corporations will pay this new tax and our schools will magically become fully funded with a bevy of programs and support.This sweet lie hides the bitter truth: Schools will remain underfunded until politicians do the tough work to reform the Public Employees Retirement System.

For any Oregonian in the last decade who has listened to politicians in Salem promise the moon if we just open our wallets one more time – it’s the same story, different day. We have more tax money flowing into our state government than ever before, but the money never makes it into the classroom.

Where has all this new cash gone? Where will it go? It’s going into pensions, payroll and benefits.

As the Oregonian’s Ted Sickinger has detailed for years, Oregon’s behemoth government employee pension debt and employee benefits are sucking the life out of our schools and public services.

According to the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, Oregon teacher salaries rank 12th in the nation. Yet that same report says we have the sixth largest class sizes and the shortest school year. Unlike every other state in the country except Utah, Oregon government employees don’t pay a dime into their pension accounts, which is one of two retirement accounts they receive. And Oregon government employees on average only pay $17.47 per month for family health insurance plans according to the state’s own 2018 Oregon Salary and Benefits Report while the rest of us pay $470.76 per month on average.

Perhaps the most confusing part of this tax debate has been the “deal” that Oregon Business and Industry, the state’s largest business group, made to stand aside for massive new “education” taxes. Just last week OBI’s chief executive Sandra McDonough, testified that her group did not oppose the new $2 billion tax on sales, even without negotiating any meaningful PERS reform which business groups have championed for years.

OBI is a partner in the Oregon Business Plan, which has said that little of that new $2 billion will reach students unless real PERS reform is achieved. In an issue brief, the Oregon Business Plan said, “Looming in the background of any revenue increase are even larger increases in payments that schools, universities, state agencies, and local governments will have to make into the Public Employee Retirement System. That’s because PERS costs have first claim on new revenue.”

It doesn’t make sense that OBI and other business groups would pat themselves on the back for this PERS tax that has no shot of improving our public schools. Something smells funny.

Until we have PERS reform, all new tax money will be gobbled up by government employee pensions once again. But as always, it’s “for the kids.”