Income tax vote no shock to many

Disappointment, not surprise.

That was the reaction Wednesday of many supporters of the city income tax for schools that was soundly defeated Tuesday by 62 percent of Eugene voters.

“I supported it because I grew up in Eugene and received a very good education in Eugene,” said Art Johnson, the 83-year-old Eugene attorney who still heads to his office in downtown’s Citizens Building most days. “For our economy and the health of our community, it’s important that we provide kids the best opportunities and the best education possible.”

Johnson, who graduated from the old Eugene High School in 1946 and went on to get his law degree at Harvard, contributed $10,000 of the $69,000 raised by the Eugene Strong Schools pro-tax campaign, according to disclosure reports filed with the Oregon Secretary of State. He acknowledges that the tax may have been confusing for some voters and says he understands why those struggling in the moribund economy would have said no thanks to the tax.

It was Johnson’s daughter-in-law, Hillary Johnson, who led the Eugene Strong Schools campaign this spring that ultimately faltered. The tax would have provided an estimated $12 million to the Eugene School District and $4.8 million to the Bethel School District in each of the next four years.

Tuesday night at Davis’ Restaurant, after initial election returns posted online showed the tax going down by a 2-to-1 ratio, Hillary Johnson told The Register-Guard she expected the tax would win because Eugene has always supported school funding measures.

It’s true that, going back to 1992, eight straight school measures have passed. But those were all bond measures or local option levies paid by property taxes. This income tax for schools — which would have imposed different rates on taxpayers, depending on their Oregon taxable income, and exempted residents below certain income levels — was a strange new creature.

Eugene voters understand and are used to bond measures, Eugene School Board Chairman Craig Smith said Tuesday at Davis’ Restaurant. Most voters knew that passing the Eugene School District’s $70 million facilities bond measure, which was also on Tuesday’s ballot, simply meant a continuation of the current $1.30 per $1,000 of assessed value. But just exactly how much more would be coming out of voters pockets for the income tax?

“Ironically, the tax being on the ballot with the bond measure I think helped the bond measure,” said Eugene City Councilor Alan Zelenka, one of six council members who voted in February to place the tax measure on the ballot. If voters couldn’t find it in their hearts, or their wallets, to support the income tax measure, most decided they could at least continue supporting schools by voting for the bond measure, which will provide sorely needed roofs and synthetic turf fields and new technology for Eugene schools.

Some ‘very disappointed’

But the irony was lost on Zelenka’s fellow city councilor, George Brown, an avid supporter of the tax measure who contributed $750 of his own money to the Eugene Strong Schools campaign, according to disclosure reports. Why pass a bond measure to pretty up your schools when you are also voting to staff those schools with fewer teachers? Brown wondered.

Brown said he is “very disappointed” the city tax did not pass — “and kind of surprised at the margin.” The final vote was 26,894 opposed to 16,326 in favor, with just a smidgen more than half, 50.1 percent, of the city’s registered voters turning out, according to Lane County Elections clerk Cheryl Betschart.

The measure’s failure “means there’s going to be 100 fewer teachers (in the Eugene School District) next year, classes will be larger and Bethel’s school year will be two weeks shorter (again),” Brown said. “It’s just another step in the deterioration of the public school system.”

Brown said he challenges tax opponents to come up with a new plan to fund local schools. “And my guess is (their plan) will never come,” he said. “It’s like waiting for Godot.”

But Councilor George Poling, who along with Mike Clark voted not to refer the city tax measure to the ballot, said the message voters sent Tuesday was directed at state legislators who need “to fix it” — the state school funding problem, that is. “The voters are tired of the local governments picking up the slack,” he said.

Clark said he hopes the tax’s failure sends the message to supporters that it was not the best solution. “It wasn’t fair and it wouldn’t have solved the problem,” he said of the tax. The answer is “cost containment” within the Eugene and Bethel school districts, Clark said.

Too many problems with tax

Ron Tyree, the owner of Tyree Oil in Eugene, was a contributor to the Citizens for Jobs and Schools political action committee, which raised $100,000 to fight the tax. Tyree said Wednesday he doesn’t think city government should have any business dealing with the schools’ business.

“Our community has always supported schools,” said Tyree, who’s had two children go through the Eugene School District system. “The support for the bond measure by the same people who voted against the tax shows that.”

But there were too many problems with the income tax, Tyree said, including the millions of dollars it would have cost to collect it; the number of people who live outside the city tax boundary but inside the school districts’ boundaries, and therefore would not have had to pay the tax; and the City Council’s track record of extending such taxes.

Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy said Wednesday that proponents did all they could in a relatively short time frame to get the tax passed. “I think we did everything we could to come up with a possible solution,” she said.

“I do think it was a little bit messy,” Piercy said of the tax. “And if people wanted to find something wrong with it, they certainly could. You have to take from the vote that people just weren’t ready for this yet, so we just have to move on.”