Credibility Begins With Honesty

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
Originally published in the Central Oregonian of January 2005

DEQ Stats Misrepresent The Real Story

“There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”—Mark Twain, American Humorist

“He used statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts; for support rather than illumination.” —Andrew Lang, American Folk Singer

“Statistics are no substitute for judgment.” Henry Clay, American Statesman

It has not been a good couple of weeks for Crook County in the statistics department.

Over Christmas, Bend media outlets were all over a report, which seemed to confirm the Bend stereotype of Crook County as an environmentally insensitive, culturally boorish and backwater part of the world.

The report at issue was a press release issued by the Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality which asserted that Crook County residents’ 2003 recycling rate fell by 50 percent.

This statistic is true, after a fashion. But it provides a valuable object lesson about the danger of checking one’s judgment at the door when applying statistical data.

In fact, Crook County’s residents’ recycling rate did drop in 2003. It is also fact that year over year, Crook County increased the volume of material recycled at its landfill in 2003. How does one rectify these seemingly contradictory statements? More statistics.

In total, collection of recyclable by Crook County residents as reported at the landfill increased in almost every category between 2002 and 2003. Residents recycled an additional 10 tons of newspapers, 16 tons of cardboard, 4 tons of glass and 678 cubic yards of wood waste. An additional 2 tons of tires were taken to the landfill along with an additional 45 tons of scrap metal. Those are impressive achievements by any scale, and the citizens of Crook County, Crook County Landfill Manager Alan Keller and the hardworking crews of Prineville Disposal and Crook County Disposal who separate all that material deserve credit for their efforts.

What they don’t deserve is the public spanking they got from a Bend Bulletin reporter who spoke to no one from Crook County before opining, “In Crook County, recycling dropped almost in half.” Had she inquired, the reporter would have discovered the real facts:

Over 1,800 tons of tire rubber recycled in Crook County, previously counted against the countywide total, was redirected to other counties. The change has to do with how the “buffings” from the Les Schwab retread plant are accounted for. In years past, all those buffings, which were taken off used tires in Crook County, were allocated to Crook County. But DEQ changed the formula in 2003, and now Crook County gets credit only for the buffings from tires which originated in Crook County. Likewise, where DEQ once counted all scrap rims from used tires taken in by Les Schwab and disposed of in Crook County against the countywide total, now when a used rim comes in to Les Schwab on a used tire and is sold for scap metal, DEQ gives credit for its disposal to the county where it came from.

Considering that Crook County’s total recycling in 2003 was 6000 tons, removing 1800 makes a big difference.

Adding to the problem was a change in the way glass was reported. A single Deschutes-County based distributor collects all the recycled glass in Central Oregon. Traditionally, that distributor has reported the total glass collected on a county by county basis. For some reason, however, the distributor failed to break out county level collections in the 2003 report to DEQ. As a result, all of Crook County’s glass was counted toward the Deschutes County total. That was very good for Deschutes County’s recycling totals, not so good for Crook County’s.

Crook County became aware of something funny in the numbers just before Christmas. We immediately informed DEQ that the data the agency was preparing to release misrepresented the true picture. Crook County asked for a delay in the release of the date until such time as the data could be adjusted for accounting changes. Unfortunately, DEQ officials were on a mission to rush their report to press and weren’t willing to wait. The result was the agency’s unfortunate report and a rash of Christmas headlines, bashing Crook County.

Only after the crush of bad media passed did DEQ agree to the requested meeting with Crook County officials. After a round of apologies, explanations about the impact of staff changes, a defensive assertion that “small injustices” like these didn’t change the statewide total, the DEQ agreed to recheck its figures, rewrite and reissue its press release and try and do some belated damage control. To date, the numbers aren’t out, and whether Bend media will be interested in the “rest of the story” remains to be seen.

I couldn’t help but think of all this somewhat ruefully last week while I watched the Governor, the Senate President and House Speaker open the legislative session with forceful assertions about the importance of restoring the credibility of government with its citizens. I would have liked to have reminded each of them that credibility ultimately begins with honesty.

If state government wants to rebuild its credibility, honesty indeed would be a good place to start.

An Aversion To Mischief

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
Published in the Powell Butte View, January 2005

The Legislature Can Avoid Making Things Worse

On January 10, the 60 representatives and 30 senators who collectively comprise the 73rd Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon will convene in Salem. When the gavel drops, the Democrat-controlled upper house and the Republican-controlled lower house—even more divided than in 2003 by philosophical differences—must somehow find a way to cut the state budget by somewhere between $600 million and a billion dollars. And that just keeps the current government running without addressing the demands of special interest groups that want to see cuts made last session restored.

It makes one wonder why anyone would want to be a part of this group.

I think it’s going to be a long, difficult road to adjournment. Veteran observers say that the session, which always aims to wrap up business by the end of June, may not call it quits until Labor Day. That’s a long time during which there is plenty of potential for mischief to occur. I offer here my own views of some mischief legislators ought to avoid, no matter how greatly they may be tempted.

Avoid the revenue discussion
Legislators are going into the session saying all the right things about the need to balance the budget through cuts, not revenue hikes. Many were around for the last two votes on hiking the income tax—an idea voters rejected. Most are starting the session saying they learned their lesson, but as Sen. Westlund put it in a recent media interview, for some legislators, tax hikes are in their DNA. If that’s so, leaders of both parties need to provide “gene therapy” to members as needed. I believe that the majority of Oregonians are neither conflicted or confused on the subject of taxes: they don’t like them, they don’t intend to pay more of them, and they don’t agree with those who say that the tax system is broken. It doesn’t bother them that the state has no sales tax. It doesn’t bother them that the property tax is capped. It doesn’t bother them that we rely so heavily on income tax as a source of revenue, and they like the kicker. End of discussion. The discussions of the last four years have produced no change in voter sentiment. This session, let’s get on to the next step of living within our means without any pointless detours down the Yellow Brick road to tax hike city.

Keep common sense in the Oregon Health Plan
The spectacular failure of the 2003 legislature to procure new revenue forced cuts in the Oregon Health Plan. Some of those cuts were accomplished by imposing a co-pay on every participant. A significant number of participants simply refused to pay even small copays and lost coverage as a result. A big priority for the Dept. of Human Services as the session open is the restoration of benefits to nearly 24,000 Oregonians previously covered by the plan. While children, the elderly and the very ill are very sympathetic and make great media copy, this is another idea that ought to die without further action on the legislative floor. Let’s face it: every tax-paying, hard-working Oregonian out there is facing his or her own problem with healthcare costs. Co-pays are rising for everyone. So are deductibles. Many small businesses have dropped healthcare coverage for employees altogether. Even for many employees who have decent coverage, the escalating cost of adding family benefits is forcing families to do without. Many of those folks are angry: they are angry that Washington seems indifferent to their plight. They are angry at the two-tier system of healthcare coverage emerging between public employees and private employees. What is needed is broad-based healthcare reform aimed at shoring up the medical safety net for everyone. Adding back coverage piecemeal for a single-class of voters, no matter how deserving, will provoke further voter anger and will eventually bring down the entire system. A long-term fix is needed, but it must be a systemic fix, and although there appears to be now incipient leadership around the issue, that’s where the Legislature should spend its time this session.

Don’t mess with the voter intent on measure 37
There has been considerable speculation that either these legislature or the governor will propose a “fix” to measure 37—the measure which provides compensation or waiver of land-use regulations whenever government reduces the value of property post-purchase by regulation. Aside from the fact that I don’t think the Governor, the Senate and the House could agree on a fix, I think there are some valid reasons emerging why they shouldn’t even try. Not the least of these is that measure 37 seems to me to be having the unintended consequence (and benefit) of restoring some long-needed balance to the land-use system. Although the measure goes into effect Dec. 2, the state was apparently caught off-guard when the measure passed in 35 of 36 Oregon counties. At this writing, the response on the state’s part seems to have been general confusion and near paralysis. Lacking state guidance, local jurisdictions have charged ahead re-ordering their systems to accommodate the measure and its impact, and long-overdue discussions have resulted about how land-use is applied and what the role of the government is in considering fairness to all property owners when enacting regulations. Measure 37 has been a boon to local control, which was supposed to be an original core principal of land-use planning when it was first adopted. The legislature would do well to watch and see how this thing unfolds before it pursues legislative fixes to what may well be non-existent problems.

Give the gay issue a rest
Oregon, like other states in the union, tore itself up over the gay marriage issue. In the end, 57 percent of the voters (and majorities in 34 counties) limited marriage to opposite sex couples. 43 percent (and majorities in two counties) didn’t want to go there. The voters have spoken, but the Supreme Court may get the last word. Stay tuned. There has been some talk that the Oregon legislature might now look to the question of whether “civil unions” (without benefit of “marriage”) might be worth looking into. I hope we don’t go there. My sense is that while a clear majority of Oregonians have strong feelings about preserving marriage as it has been traditionally understood, there is considerably less agreement about the degree of tolerance the state ought to extend to other aspects of same-sex relationships. Any further debate on that subject (such as the proposal to legitimize civil unions) only keeps the issue stirred up and detracts from the more important question of how to balance the budget. One of my criticisms of the 2003 session was that there were too many sideshows and not enough acts in the main ring. Let’s stay on task this time. We can talk about social agendas when fiscal crisis isn’t at hand.

Mend the White House fences
For all the good it did him, no U.S. President history has visited Oregon more times than George Bush did in his first term. That’s a little uncomfortable considering that we ended up in the “blue state” column. As hard is may be for some, now it’s time to recognize that statewide we backed the wrong horse in the last election. Now we need to reach out and work on repairing the damage. Notwithstanding his upcoming re-election campaign, the governor needs to call at the White House and “make nice” with the President. Key legislative leadership needs to publicly recognize and thank the President for his efforts on behalf of our state during the last four years, despite the revulsion that many vocal Oregonians felt for some of those proposals. The state needs to employ somebody close to the current administration to lobby an Oregon agenda. The predominantly Democrat Oregon congressional delegation isn’t in a position to get it’s phone calls answered. Mr. Bush will be President for the next four years. He can advance Oregon’s agenda or ignore it. There are no election consequences, regardless of his choice. Having blown the opportunity to prevail on the President’s sense of gratitude for our support, we now have to be the President’s friend or at least be friends with his friends and rely on them to make our case.

Transportation Tempest Looms

By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
published in the Powell Butte Views, January 2005

No Simple Answer To Lack of Highway Funds

Just before Christmas, the president of the Oregon Senate and the Speaker of the Oregon House named the leadership and membership of legislative committees for the upcoming session. Crook County’s representatives, Rep. George Gilman (R-Eagle Point) and Sen. Doug Whitsett (R-Klamath Falls), both landed leadership assignments on the transportation committee—Gilman as House committee chair, and Whitsett as Senate committee vice chair.

For Gilman, it will be an opportunity to build on his experience in the 2003 session, when he was a member of the transportation committee. For Whitsett, who will be a freshman when the Senate opens January 10, the assignment to a leadership position is an important signal of the confidence from his peers.

In ordinary times, Crook County might have been “licking its chops” over the potential benefits of having both its legislators leading the same committee in both chambers. You can almost smell the batch plants heating up. Unfortunately, we don’t live in ordinary times, and the current revenue problems plaguing the state probably mean dedicated funding to four-lane highway 26 between Prineville and Redmond probably isn’t in the offing.

So if Crook County’s elected representatives in the legislature won’t be going after funding for the locals, what can we expect out of them in this session? My guess is that much of their time will be spent trying to once again nail down an answer to the question of why it costs the State of so much more to do its transportation business than it does any other entity and why it is that about why

At first glance, this doesn’t quite make sense. After all, the governor is recommending a budget that is nearly 7 percent higher than the last biennium and features a cash infusion of nearly $18.5 million. With just shy of $2.9 billion to work with, why does Oregon feel that its revenue requirements, in the Governor’s words, “have not kept pace with the transportation needs in the state.”

A big factor is the governor’s contention that the gas tax, at 24 cents per gallon, is not high enough. Gas tax has been around in Oregon for a long time. Oregon was the first state in the union to impose a gas tax in 1919. Since then, every state has followed.

But gas tax collections reached a plateau in the early 1990s. Since 1992, only 28 states have raised their gas tax., In tax-averse Oregon, the gas tax was last increased in 1991,when it reached 24 cents per gallon, putting the state’s rate at the 11th highest in the nation. In addition, with the advent of a new generation of more fuel-efficient cars, collections are actually projected to begin falling after about 2010.

Adding to the financial pressure is the fact that about 33 percent of Oregon’s transportation budget comes from federal largesse. Recent congressional enactments, put into place when the federal government was rolling in surplus money, shared billions with the states. Few, if any, people think that scenario is likely to repeat itself in the face of current deficits and the need to transfer money to national security concerns and the costs of maintaining an overseas presence.

A third consideration is borrowing to pay for our needs. Oregon started borrowing against future revenues during the 1999 legislative session. Another round of borrowing followed in 2001, and yet another in 2003. All over the state self-congratulatory highway signs have sprouted, signaling projects paid for by one of the three Oregon Transportation Investment Acts. Although the revenues for repayment of the bonds which underwrote these projects are secure (the funds will come from increased registration and titling fees), there is little capacity in the system for more borrowing, cutting off that financing avenue.

That leaves policymakers like the governor, Rep. Gilman and Sen. Whitsett with a problem. On the one hand, the public demands of its government as well maintained road system. On the other, the only funding mechanism available is shrinking. What do to.

But that alone won’t get the job done, and that’s where Gilman and Whitsett will be in the hot seat in the upcoming session.

One of the first ideas they will have to grapple with is a proposal which has been picking up steam for several years: a wholesale dumping of gas tax in favor of a vehicle mileage tax. The idea, floated and backed by environmental groups, is to more accurately tie taxation to the number of miles driven. The proposal would be slowly phased in. New cars would be required to be equipped with an electronic reader, which would report at the gas pump how many miles your car has traveled since your last fill up. Satellite technology would transmit this information to a computer in Salem, which would calculate the mileage you owe and add it on to your bill. Privacy advocates obviously hate this idea, as does anyone with a lengthy commute. Environmentalists say this is the economic incentive needed to push people off the highways and onto mass transit, benefiting air quality, reducing congestion and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. This idea was deferred for more study in the last session, but it is far from dead.

Another idea which deserves a close looks is the cost of doing business as usual. Oregon transportation officials use a rule of thumb that typical two-lane highway projects cost nearly $1 million per mile. Some researchers, including the Construction Research Labor Council, place Oregon among the more efficient states in its road-building costs. Still, any competent road contractor can find savings which bidding system and environmental compliance rules force the state to leave on the table. Finding those loopholes and plugging them is Gilman and Whitsett’s job this session.

A third option worth looking at is why Oregon diverts 2.3 percent of its gas tax collections from actual road maintenance to General Fund and non-highway uses. (The number comes from a Brookings Institute Study). That’s an extra $9.3 million—an amount which would more than double the Governor’s proposed contribution to roads from the General Fund. It isn’t the ultimate solution, but every penny counts.

I’m not sure where this state is headed on the issue of how to maintain and expand its transportation system. There are no simple answers, and the most obvious ones—raise or index the gas tax, defer construction and maintenance or borrow our way out of the problem for now—really aren’t viable.

I’m glad its Kulongoski, Gilman and Whitsett that have to figure it out. Unfortunately, whatever they put in place, ultimately will affect all of us in a very immediate way. It would be prudent to keep your eye on the ball in Salem for the next several months as the team grapples for answers to a problem with no obvious solution.