July 28, 2010

We must use 2011 to bring our resources and expenditures back into balance in a way that provides a solid foundation on which we can rebuild. We need to view our next budget not in terms of how we "cut" $2 billion but rather how we take the revenue we have and invest it as the first step in a prioritized reinvestment plan. That means an end to short-term thinking that lurches from crisis to crisis -- and a new beginning: I will change how we budget and spend by moving to a 10-year budget framework that allows us to invest, achieve and measure results over the long term.

Our most important long-term investment education is the largest part of the state budget. Education (early childhood to post-secondary education) accounts for sixty percent of Oregon’s general fund budget.
And yet the budget framework through which we allocate public resources for education views early childhood investments; primary and secondary education; community colleges and the Oregon University System (OUS) as separate competing entities rather than as part of an interdependent continuum.

We must consolidate all educational investment into a unified, transparent, performance-based budget to target our limited resources to maximize student achievement over the next two years. This will provide schools with a "funding floor" they can count on going forward. Inadequate revenue is a huge problem, but the inability to know from month to month how much money a district can count on makes budget management almost impossible. Stability and certainty is what our schools need.

Read more about my education plan.

http://www.johnkitzhaber.com/2010/07/28/invest-education-invest-our-future/