Sean C. Morgan
Phil Barnhart isn’t done yet. The problem that brought him to the Oregon legislature isn’t solved.
Barnhart, 66, of Eugene was angry about education funding when he ran for the Oregon House of Representatives for the first time in 2000. The legislature has made incremental progress, he says, but it still hasn’t solved the problems.
Barnhart is the incumbent Democrat running against Republican Kelly Lovelace for state House District 11.
“I had no plans when I ran to be there that long,” Barnhart said. But with most representatives serving about three two-year terms, longer-term legislators like Barnhart serve as institutional memory for the legislature.
Barnhart ran because of school funding, he said. Measure 5 had changed local school funding, flipping the funding picture around from 70 percent local and 30 percent state.
Eugene had to lay off 100 teachers, Barnhart said, adding that his son lost a “wonderful” fifth-grade teacher to the layoffs.
“I got angry.”
A couple of years later, redistricting brought him to the Sweet Home area, as his district became largely rural.
“For me, it was a huge education,” Barnhart said. “I needed to learn about issues I hadn’t before.”
Cougars
The encroachment of cougars into the Sweet Home area is one of those, and he’s learned it doesn’t have an easy answer.
“This is one of those situations where the people adopted a rule,” Barnhart said. “The legislature is very reluctant to change that.”
Recently, the legislature authorized the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to do more to manage cougars, he said, especially when they are entering cities and endangering livestock. He had just learned about a horse that had to be put down on Northside Drive, just outside Sweet Home, following a cougar attack and two sightings the same week inside the city limits, one on Main Street.
“I’m not convinced that we have solved that problem,” Barnhart said. “I get really nervous when I hear stories like you just told me.
“The first time a cougar kills a 3-year-old, that law will be gone and the opposite will be in place,” Barnhart said, referring to the voter-approved law against hunting the cats with dogs.
“I tend to be a pragmatist,” Barnhart said. “I want to figure out what works. I don’t want cougars attacking 3-year-old babies.”
But cougars are part of the environment too, he said. “Where the happy medium is, I don’t know. It’s clear to me that we’re not there yet.”
He will support efforts to manage cougars better, he said.
Education
In the meantime, he will continue focusing on education funding, he said. “We still haven’t resolved our school funding problems.”
There are not enough teachers, and class sizes are too large, Barnhart said. The House Revenue Committee, where he is co-chairman, is still working on reforming Oregon’s tax system to make it more fair and adequate.
State Budget and Taxes
He helped pass a law that sunsets every tax credit on a six-year cycle, allowing the legislature to review them regularly.
“In the next session, we’re doing incremental improvements in our tax system,” Barnhart said, and the governor has a work group, with members from labor and industry, reviewing the tax system. Barnhart is interested in the group’s findings because the governor, through these types of work groups, has been successful at several reforms in the past, such as workman’s compensation.
Barnhart is looking for a tax system that works, that produces the revenue necessary to pay for enough teachers and restore programs, such as vocational education, he said. Right now, the state doesn’t have enough people working in the trades, and they’re critically important.
“We need money, but the normal household is pretty well tapped out,” Barnhart said. He is looking to close tax loopholes for large out-of-state corporations and wealthy taxpayers who pay a smaller percentage of their incomes in taxes compared to the average taxpayer.
“Oregon ranks very, very low (in taxes) for these kinds of big businesses,” Barnhart said. “We have been making progress slowly but surely.”
The economy itself is a huge national issue, Barnhart said. “It’s an issue the state has struggled with.”
But it’s doing what it can, he said. Last session, the state voters passed a measure for $175 million to replace 50-year-old buildings on community college campuses. And legislators are looking at another round of it.
Projects like this and putting more teachers to work “help stimulate the economy and put people back to work,” Barnhart said. The grocery store doesn’t have two different lines for government workers and private sector workers. Their money spends the same.
At the same time, the legislature has taken steps to make the government more efficient, eliminating middle management positions so it can run more programs without finding new money.
PERS
Another state program is behind increasing costs on school districts and other agencies throughout the state, the Public Employees Retirement System.
The problem is fixed, Barnhart said. It was solved in 2003 when the legislature developed a third tier of employees.
The problem is with the existing Tier I and Tier II employees, Barnhart said. The courts have said that that agencies have made promises and they cannot back out of them.
“Can we do anything about it?”
That’s the tough question, Barnhart said.
“Things are going to get better naturally,” Barnhart said. “But there are things we can do and need to do.”
He is disappointed that the legislature failed to do anything about an offset that retirees have received in order to pay their taxes, Barnhart said. Out-of-state retirees who do not pay Oregon taxes still receive the adjustment.
The biggest issues with PERS, which occurred in the 1990s when the legislature was controlled by Republicans, cannot be fixed, Barnhart said. That means pension costs will remain higher than they can be.
“I am continuing to pursue that,” he said. “But it doesn’t do away with all the issues the School Board’s been talking about.”
The best solution is an economic recovery, he said. In 2007, before the recession, PERS was funded at 110 percent. Today it’s still one of the best funded pension programs in the nation at about 80 percent.
Tax Levies
With local taxes, Barnhart is looking carefully at a League of Oregon Cities proposal to return local control and allow certain types of tax levies to exist outside of property tax limitations to stabilize funding of law enforcement, for example.
“We’re examining that very carefully,” Barnhart said. Local governments and people lost local control because of the property tax limitations passed in the 1990s. He wants to find a way to build a system that allows them to make decisions at a local level without bypassing the property tax limitations, a way to grant local entities more flexibility.
Barnhart has been supportive of funding police departments, he said. He helped restore 24-hour Oregon State Police coverage in 2002.
Personal
He is active in constituent service, he said. In the past four years, he has held 62 town hall meeting across his sprawling district, with its diverse rural and urban constituency.
“I need to get out, and I do,” he said, and he encourages constituents to call him or send an email when they have problems with a state agency. He will help.
Barnhart was a lawyer, serving as a defense attorney and as a deputy district attorney. He returned to school and became a psychologist before going to the legislature.
He is married to Florence. They have two children and two grandchildren.
For more information, visit philbarnhart.com on the web.