LERC scrambles to avoid budget axe

SALEM — Two-hundred-thousand dollars is not much money in a two-year $12.4 billion State of Oregon budget. But a $200,000 cut — to a departmental budget of $1.35 million — is a crisis. As the dust settles from this year’s legislative budget battles, staff at one program important to organized labor are alarmed by the size of the expected budget cut.

At the Labor Education and Research Center (LERC) of the University of Oregon, six full-time faculty and four full-time office staff help Oregon unions with research and training. Over 100 active union members have graduated from LERC’s U-LEAD training program since 1997, and about 500 are currently enrolled. LERC provides training in grievance handling, collective bargaining and arbitration. It also helps unions conduct long-term strategic planning. And in recent years LERC staff have conducted research useful to unions, on topics including prison labor, the nursing shortage, outsourcing at public schools and comparisons of union and non-union apprenticeship programs.

It’s one of about 40 such programs around the country.

Unions pressed for and won LERC’s creation in 1977 as a public service program of the university — much like the agricultural extension programs that serve farmers. But LERC’s budget isn’t safe if labor is out of favor politically.

For 10 years, LERC’s budget has been flat, going up only about 1.77 percent a year to make up for inflation. Now it faces a cut of about one-sixth of its budget. LERC has some reserves, and won’t have to take immediate action. But if the cut stands, says LERC director Bob Bussel, it's likely to look at staff reductions.

Within the state higher education budget, LERC is grouped with other campus-based public services programs, like art museums and extension programs. This year, at the Legislature’s Joint Ways & Means Committee, Republican House Majority leader Wayne Scott proposed a $1 million cut to that larger budget. Senate Democrat Kurt Schrader upped the proposed cut to $2.4 million, but requested that LERC and several other programs be spared.

The office of the Chancellor of Higher Education opposed that approach, on the grounds that it would have meant more severe cuts to even smaller programs. Instead, it asked that if a cut be made, the university system be given discretion in how to allocate the cuts. In the final budget, that’s what happened.

Bussel said it’s likely that the Oregon University System will let each university decide how to apportion the cuts. At UO, the decision will fall to Provost John Mosely. Mosely is expected to make a determination in mid-October, after fall enrollment figures are available. LERC supporters are asking that UO use discretionary funds to restore its budget. Supporters are signing cards and sending them to Mosely before he makes his decision.

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