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Director's Message January 6, 2004To: DHS Employees From: Jean I. Thorne, Director Re: Potential budget cuts As you know, voters will decide February 3 whether to approve tax increases that the Legislature used to help balance the 2003-05 budget. The Governor has asked those state agencies involved to prepare recommendations for how they would achieve the savings required should Measure 30 not pass. The Legislature has set the amount of cuts for each state agency. It has directed the DHS portion of the budget reduction to be $207 million, requiring most of it to come from Health Services, and lesser amounts from our two other clusters, Children, Adults and Families (CAF) and Seniors and People with Disabilities (SPD). We submitted the first draft of our recommended plan yesterday, January 5, and plan to make it available on our website in the next few days. While I can't give you any details of the plan until it is officially released, I want to make sure you are aware of two key points: 1) The plan we presented is preliminary; it is our first draft only. The numbers in it will most likely change many times before they are finalized. The Governor, in turn, must ultimately approve the actions to be taken. 2) If Measure 30 does not pass and cuts become necessary, most will not go into effect until at least May 2004. Let me explain why finalizing these potential cuts is a process that may take substantial time. ---Offsets. In many situations, when we make a cut in a program, the resulting lack of services may cause increased needs for other services. This causes those programs to bear additional expenses, which we call offsets. These offsets or additional expenses must be factored in as we try to reach our ultimate savings goal. ---Complexity. Also, because of the complexity of our budget and the many sources from which we obtain our funding, we must make these cuts while meeting federal mandates and other legal obligations to provide certain levels of service to various segments of the public. ---Possible legislative action. Should the ballot measure fail, it's unclear whether the Legislature might return for a special session. Staffing. I know many of you are wondering if there will be any staff reductions due to the cuts. Of course, if programs were to be eliminated, we could no longer support the need for staff for those programs. But, as with the last set of cuts, we will attempt to use attrition as a means to lessen the effect on our workforce. I promise you that we will do everything we can to minimize any potential layoffs. As you can see, this is not a simple process. In my meetings around the state, many of you have expressed concerns about specific programs being cut. Those concerns have been factored into the decisions we've had to make. They have not been easy decisions. As I said earlier, these are preliminary policy recommendations only that now need to be reviewed by the Governor. Nothing is final at this point. I will send you information on the full plan as soon as I can, and I will update you as it evolves over the next several months. And once again, I remind you that, even though we may have personal opinions about Measure 30, as state employees, we are prohibited from any activity that either promotes or opposes it while on the job during working hours. I appreciate your support and your dedication to the people of Oregon as we move through this next set of challenges. Back to top |
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