06:58 AM PDT on Tuesday, August 17, 2004

By JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press Writer

MEDFORD, Ore. -- Widespread drug abuse and precarious financing for public education are making it tough to find good workers, southern Oregon business leaders said Monday as a panel developing an economic plan for Oregon's future embarked on a statewide bus tour.

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While the unemployment rate remains high, businesses are having difficulty filling jobs because so many of the applicants cannot pass a drug test, Steve Vincent, Oregon economic development manager in Medford for Avista Utilities, told Sen. Ron Wyden and members of the Oregon Business Plan Steering Committee.

"Somewhere there has got to be a new innovative approach to address this problem," Vincent said in a meeting at Bear Creek Corp. offices.

Begun in 2002, the Oregon Business Plan aims to develop goals and strategies to focus economic development in Oregon. Wyden and members of the steering committee are traveling by bus to nine cities around the state to listen to local business leaders in preparation for an upcoming economic summit to be held Dec. 6.

"Part of all this is to get the ideas," said Wyden. "The best economic development is bottom-up, not top-down."

Jerry Evans, owner of the Jacksonville Inn restaurant, raised the issue of methamphetamine abuse after business leaders making prepared remarks repeatedly expressed support for more stable funding for public education, which has suffered deep budget cuts as a result of state tax revenue shortfalls tied to the economic downturn.

"It doesn't do any good to have a good education if you have a substance abuse problem," Evans said.

Others quickly backed him up.

Don Skundrich of LTM Inc., a concrete and paving company with branches around the state, suggested the Oregon Business Plan should add drug abuse to the issues it is looking at because it affects so many things, from the availability of a quality workforce to tax rates to support police trying to control crime.

"The substance abuse issue is huge," said Skundrich.

Al Francis, vice president of Batzer Development Alliance, a Medford construction company with more than 200 employees, suggested businesses could be a good point of contact for drug rehabilitation, with applicants flunking drug tests promised an interview if they complete a rehabilitation program.

"I think this is going to become a crisis in Oregon in regards to the labor pool," he said of drug abuse. "It's been a problem we've put our head in the sand about."

On school funding, Oregon Shakespeare Festival marketing director Janeen Olsen said they had felt budget cuts directly in the box office, where 18,000 fewer tickets were sold last year because schools could no longer afford to send students to see plays. The festival employs 450 people and generates $135 million for the local economy.

"It's devastating for us to see the lack of funding for schools," she said.

Roger Stokes of Brill Metal Works in Medford, a custom sheetmetal fabricator, also said his top priority for business development was stabilizing funding for education.

"We've got to do something about getting a sales tax, if that's the answer to financing schools," Stokes said.

Oregon has repeatedly voted down efforts to institute a sales tax to fund schools.

Stokes suggested that schools have done too good a job getting by with less, masking the magnitude of the problem.