Cascadia NewsNet, Wednesday, May 1, 1996


Local option initiative goes to high court

Challenge of measure means it may not make it onto the ballot

Rep. Rasmussen SALEM (Cascadia News Service) - Oregon voters probably won't see a local option for school funding measure on their November ballot. The Oregon Supreme Court stopped signature gathering for the initiative filed by Southwest Portland Rep. Anitra Rasmussen Monday because of a challenge filed by a retired lawyer.

Rasmussen, a Democrat, filed the initiative March 27. She said it would provide school districts with some financial relief until the state Legislature can address the statewide school funding formula.

The initiative would allow local districts to increase property taxes by up to $2 per $1,000 of assessed value. The increase would have to be approved by voters in each district, and would have to be renewed every three years. Measure 5, which voters passed in 1990, currently limits the amount of property tax that schools can receive to $5 per $1,000.

The local option would give Elgin school district, for example, the option of raising up to $160,000 per year and Medford to raise $7.8 million, Rasmussen said.

Henry Kane, a retired attorney who lives in Beaverton, filed the challenge with the Oregon Supreme Court.

He has contested the constitutionality of other initiatives and bills, including the light-rail funding package passed by the 1995 legislature. He said he also plans to challenge the second light-rail bill, which was passed by the February special legislative session.

Kane said his concern with the local option measure is that it cancels itself. He said that by mentioning that the $5 per $1,000 cap exists, but not doing any thing to change it, tax assessors would simply refuse to collect the local option tax.

"It's not what you intend but what you say. This is one more poignant instance I have seen where people in good faith submit a proposed measure and it's flawed," he said. "If I win, I don't even get my filing fee back. I do it because that's what attorneys are supposed to, even retired and inactive attorneys."

Rasmussen said the initiative doesn't need to spell out how the cap would be changed. "That's where the policy wonks get together in the back room and work it out," she said.

Kane said that he's open to negotiation. He suggested working with the attorney general's office to clear up the problem. Or, he said, if the lawyers who wrote the initiative could convince him that the measure doesn't cancel itself out he'd repeal his challenge.

"If the decision comes down fast, I may even ask her for a few petitions and get them signed myself," Kane said.

In a best case scenario, Rasmussen said, the court would address the issue the first week of June. That would give her just a month to collect the almost 100,000 signatures necessary to get the initiative on the ballot. She said collecting the signatures would be possible if enough people take interest and donate time and money.

John 'Prisons' Kitzhaber Some state officials may be relieved that Rasmussen's measure may not make it on the ballot. Gov. John Kitzhaber has said he would support such a plan, but only after state funding becomes more equal from district to district. He said the 1998-1999 school year would be the earliest he would like to see the option exercised.

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