November 27th there was a meeting at Aloha High school to discus school funding, it was well attended. The message I took away from the meeting was that unless there are fundamental changes to Oregon tax structure school funding will not be stable or adequate and that Oregon voters won’t except that change unless they see that government is seriously working to curb spending and PERS cost are a big part of that.
I see our challenge as helping guide policy so that retirement benefits will be delivered in the most cost effective way with out diminishing those benefits that have been earned.
I want to end by saying how proud I am to be part of the Beaverton School District, the support by the community for not just the schools but for the employees of the district was evident, the overall tone was one of “lets get to work and get this fixed”.