Isaac Laquedem

Why does Riverdale have more money than Portland? Ask the Portland Development Commission

House Bill 2748 is one of the more curious bills in this session of the Oregon legislature.  Sponsored by the Committee on Education, it would prohibit Oregon school districts from charging tuition to out-of-district students who live in Oregon.  Many Oregon school districts, including Portland Public Schools, the state's largest, collect tuition from out-of-district students.  The tiny Riverdale School District, sandwiched between Portland and Lake Oswego, depends on out-of-district students to keep its high school open.  Forty percent of the district's students (roughly 230 of 567) come from other Oregon districts and half of those pay tuition: $5560 for kindergarten running up to $11,950 for high school.

The bill's chief proponent, Representative Sara Gelser of Corvallis, who chairs the Education Committee, didn't know about Riverdale's odd circumstances when she introduced the bill.  She's agreed to amend it to grandfather Riverdale in, under some conditions.  The bill is still troubling, and not just because it's a cure in search of a disease.  The Riverdale grade and high schools (there is just one of each) are putting out an educational product desirable enough that parents who can't afford to live in the district will pay nearly $12,000/year to send their child there.  Instead of forcing Riverdale to stop charging tuition, the Education Committee ought to be looking for ways to get other school districts to improve their own products.  Shouldn't every school in Oregon be one that is worth paying for?

Riverdale does spend more on direct classroom (teaching) and classroom support than does PPS, $8749/student compared to $7195/student for Portland.  It occurred to me to dig into the numbers a bit and see where the differences come from.

The first big difference is that Riverdale funds more teachers.  Its student-teacher ratio is 16.8:1 compared to 19.7:1 for Portland -- 17% more teacher per student.  The second difference, noticeable but not as significant financially, is that Riverdale's teachers are more educated and experienced than PPS's teachers: 88% have master's degrees (69% of PPS's do), and they have an average of 15.6 years of experience, compared to 14 years for PPS's teachers.  Teachers' salaries in both districts are figured on a matrix that runs from $35,000 to $73,000; a teacher's salary increases based on years of experience and on education beyond a bachelor's degree.  So the combination of education and experience results in Riverdale paying a higher salary per teacher even though the underlying matrix is similar to Portland's.

The Wall Street Journal famously identified Riverdale as the third-richest school district in the country.  The Journal was not quite accurate; Riverdale has the third-highest household income of any United States school district, but that's only partly reflected in the district's finances.  The Riverdale School District is discernibly richer than Portland, but not by a wide margin: despite having no commercial or industrial tax base, Riverdale has $1,007,000 of taxable real estate per student.  Portland has $858,000 of taxable real estate per student. 

What would bring Portland's tax funding up to Riverdale's level?  Part of the difference is property value per student.  The PPS system has about 47,000 students, so adding $150,000 of assessed value per student would require about $7 billion of assessed value (the value on which tax bills are based), or $10 billion of real market value (assessed value is running at about 70% of real market value).  That's equal to two Intel plants and unlikely to happen.  However, PPS includes at least $4.3 billion of what the state calls "excess value" in urban renewal districts established by the City of Portland.  Riverdale has no urban renewal districts.  Put another way, more than half the difference per student between what Riverdale taxes and what PPS taxes can be explained by Portland's urban renewal districts keeping $4.3 billion of property value from supporting the Portland Public Schools.  (Some bright soul at PPS headquarters has likely worked this out.)

Part of the difference is tax rate: PPS is charging $7.26 per thousand, none of which is bonded indebtedness.  Riverdale charges $8.25 per thousand, of which about a third is a bond levy for the replacement grade school it built a few years ago.  If Portland taxed at Riverdale's overall rate, it would generate an additional $858 per student, which would cover the other half of the gap in classroom cost per student.

Though I don't support Representative Gelser's bill, I am grateful that her idea spurred me to look into these figures and see just how much urban renewal is costing Portland's schools.  Maybe PPS will take urban renewal more seriously.

Senator Alexander (and many others) will trust an alien with a gun, but not a car

Forty-six United States senators voted today against a bill that would have required background checks on people who want to buy guns in the United States, including Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, both Republicans from Tennessee.

In 2007, Senators Alexander and Corker sponsored legislation to denounce states that issue driver's licenses to aliens in this country unlawfully, saying that allowing illegal aliens to carry dirver's licenses presents a risk to our national security.

This leads to the delightful conclusion that Senators Alexander and Corker, and many others, trust illegal aliens with guns but not cars.  They're apparently fine with undocumented immigrants going to the gun shows to buy guns as long as they take public transit to get there.

Bojack has left the building

Lake Oswego: where you live when you can't afford Portland prices

Complain as I do about the eccentricities of the Portland city council, they have been making the city a more desirable place to live, at least if housing prices are evidence.  Now and then it's been reported that people who are priced out of the Portland housing market are finding less expensive housing -- even in Lake Oswego.

Light rail: Clackamas County doesn't want to pay, and Milwaukie can't pay

Last year the voters of Clackamas County passed an initiative which requires the county to seek the voters' approval before providing any money or other resources to light rail.  The county's first election is this May, though some assert that the election results won't affect commitments that the county made before the voters passed the initiative.

The next light rail funding election is likely to be in Milwaukie, but not because of the county initiative, which doesn't apply to cities.  Rather, it's because Milwaukie's councilors and management have discovered that the city can't afford the commitment it already made to the new light rail line.  As told in the Portland Tribune this week:  "In 2008, city officials signed on to paying TriMet $4 million for the light-rail line under construction.... TriMet renegotiated a payment plan with Milwaukie after it became clear that the city wouldn't be able to pay within 90 days of the Federal Transit Administration's 50 percent match to the $1.49 billion total project cost."  The city and TriMet negotiated a 19-year payment plan, with the last payment ($364,875) coming due in 2031.  TriMet is charging interest at 5%, incidentally.

According to the Tribune, Milwaukie's city manager "predicted that the city can make the payment for this year and next year, . . . but the payments would quickly lead to an unsustainable situation in following years."  Translated, that means that the city will have to either raise taxes or cut services in order to pay its bill to TriMet.  The city council plans to ask voters which choice they prefer, and will also possibly put a bond measure on the ballot to support a particular city service, perhaps parks or the city library.

So Milwaukie's situation is different from Clackamas County's: the city won't be asking voters whether they want to pay $5 million for light rail, but whether they want to pay $5 million to keep the city services that the council would otherwise have to cut in order to pay for light rail.  Nothing in the article suggested that anyone's asked the councilors who were serving in 2008, and who committed Milwaukie to pay the $5 million, where they expected to find the money.  I doubt the voters expected that they might look to the parks and libraries to pay for the trains.

Not only can you not take it with you, but you'd better have left $35 behind for the Arts Tax

One quirk of the arts tax imposed by the City of Portland through the will of the well-meaning voters in November is that it taxes the full-year 2012 income of Portland residents even though it didn't take effect until December 5, 2012, when 339 days of the year had already passed.  The act defines a "resident" of Portland to include persons who spent 200 days or more in the City, with some exceptions not important here, bringing up the delightful possibility that the estates of Portlanders who died between June 18 and December 4, 2012 are liable for the $35 head tax even though they died before the tax came into being, giving the government an unexpected reason to reread the obituaries.

Rename SW Second Avenue after . . .

I came across this post I had written in July 2009 about the renaming of 39th Avenue after Cesar Chavez.  As I oppose renaming Portland's streets after people who didn't contribute to Portland's history, I opposed renaming 39th Avenue, and still dislike how the City Council violated public policy on street names in the process.

Professor Bogdanski's comment to my post sparked an idea for a street renaming that I would support, and for which I think a petition drive would succeed.  It's to rename SW 2nd Avenue downtown after James Chasse, the musician whom members of the Portland police beat to death in 2006 (breaking 26 of his bones in the process) and whose death brought about a long-overdue, if not fully satisfactory, investigation into Portland's treatment of the mentally ill.

Why SW 2nd Avenue?  The Police Bureau's address, which would appear on the business card of every officer, would become 1111 SW James Chasse Avenue.  Every Portland police officer would be carrying Mr. Chasse's name while on duty as a reminder that their mission to protect and to serve includes protecting and serving the homeless and the mentally ill.

Think about it.

The Portland Streetcar's real purpose revealed

One of the ongoing discussions about the Portland Streetcar is whether it is faster to walk or take the streetcar.  When I want to travel along the streetcar's route downtown, I trot briskly along the route until a streetcar catches up with me, or until I catch up with the streetcar, or until I get to my destination.  Usually I beat the streetcar.  Every time I follow the tracks, I notice others also jogging or walking briskly along the route, apparently with the same purpose. 

Twenty years ago I visited the Multnomah Kennel Club and watched the greyhounds run around the circuit, chasing a mechanical rabbit that's pulled along a channel next to the track.  It struck me today as I noticed people trotting along the rail line that the Portland Streetcar is not primarily a means of transportation, nor is it mainly a subsidy to lucky if inept contractors and suppliers.

It's a public health measure, designed to not to move people from Point A to Point B, but to improve the cardiovascular fitness of downtown workers and residents who strive to outpace the trolleycar. 

It's the rabbit, and we're the greyhounds.

The Portland Streetcar: TriMet contracts, but Portland's cost expands

Here's an interesting question about contracts.  TriMet is suing Clackamas County because the county commission is asking the voters to decide whether the county should give TriMet two pieces of property that TriMet says the county promised to give it.  TriMet's position is that a contract is a contract, and Clackamas County needs to honor its promises to TriMet.  At the same time, TriMet is asking Portland to chip in $2.1 million for the eastside streetcar (here's the city's proposed resolution), even though the 2010 contract between the city and TriMet called for the city to pay TriMet only $600,000, increased to $1.25 million in 2011.

Is a contract with TriMet binding?  It depends on who's paying.

Interstate Bridges dilemma solved: span will be 150 feet high and carry light rail

In a joint press conference this morning, the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Washington State Department of Transportation, TriMet, and the Coast Guard announced that they have agreed on a design for the replacement of the Interstate Bridges with a fixed span that will carry light rail without impeding navigation.  Affected upriver users have also signed on to the plan.

The agencies' dilemma was that a large part of the bridge funding will come from federal grants for light rail, but if the bridge is built with the 150-foot clearance necessary to accommodate existing river traffic, its approach grades will be too steep for light rail to climb.  The proposed light rail line also faces active opposition from Clark County residents who fear that it would become a conduit for crime.

TriMet general manager Neil MacFarlane explained the elegant solution.  "ODOT and WSDOT will build a bridge with 150 feet of clearance over the river and with a lower deck for pedestrians and bicycles.  TriMet will construct a light rail line on the middle span of the bridge, about 500 feet long, but not connect it to the mainland.  Once a year we'll run a Lake Oswego trolley car back and forth on the bridge."  MacFarlane added that this will satisfy the federal requirement for matching funds: the bridge must include light rail, but the line on the bridge doesn't need to connect to the existing system. 

Fiscal analysts for TriMet, noting that TriMet loses money on light rail, said that by operating the bridge light rail only one day a year, TriMet will save enough money to restore service on six bus lines.  Capital costs are also reduced by $500 million, as the Yellow Line won't be extended beyond the Expo Center.

Although the trolley car will carry passengers only one day a year, it won't be idle.  The other 364 days of the year, the trolley car will help raise money to pay the cost of building the bridge, snapping pictures of the license plates of solo drivers in the carpool lane and housing a photo radar unit.  TriMet will get half the ticket revenue. 

"We're going to finally make light rail turn a profit," MacFarlane smiled.