11:24 PM PST on Tuesday, February 22, 2005

By JULIA SILVERMAN, AP Education Writer

SALEM -- Oregon's public schools and its state police force look to be on a collision course, headed for a crash at the state Capitol.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski's proposed budget for 2005-07 set aside $120 million in new lottery revenue to fund state police troopers.

But school advocates are loudly contending that the money should be theirs, setting up a pitched battle between public safety advocates and education lobbyists.

"Any new source of funding within the Salem is like fresh blood in the water to sharks — everyone is hungry," said Dan Swift, president of the Oregon State Police Officers' Association. "The frustrating thing from our point of view is that is that education stands up and says, 'No more cuts, we need more money,' but they never ask the question of where it is supposed to come from. Other people need money too."

The emerging fight over new lottery revenue includes the money that analysts project would be generated from adding slot-type games to bars and taverns across Oregon, which currently offer only video poker.

In his December budget proposal, Kulongoski went out of his way to highlight his proposal to give that money to state troopers, calling it, "one of the most difficult policy decisions in the budget."

"Although I have not been a proponent of the state expanding into line games," Kulongoski continued in his budget speech, "I believe the impact it will have on public safety outweighs my concern."

Troopers hailed the decision, especially coming two years after the first round of layoffs in the agency's history, due to budget cuts.

But education activists, after a spate of shortened school years, teacher layoffs and larger class sizes, went on a near-immediate crusade to convince legislators that any extra lottery money rightfully belonged in their column.

They contend that measures passed by Oregon voters have intended that lottery proceeds go to economic development, education, parks and salmon preservation, minus the retailers' cut and administrative costs.

"Unless you are willing to say that state police writing tickets represents a form of economic development, I think their eligibility is in question for these lottery dollars directly," said Chuck Bennett, the governmental affairs director for the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators.

But in the past, legislators have taken a broad view of what constitutes economic development — devoting some lottery money to corrections, for example, on the theory that strong public safety can spur economic investment.

Such a theory, "stretches the realm of reason," said Jonah Edelman, executive director of Stand For Children, an education advocacy group.

Kulongoski left the door open for the lottery money to be diverted to schools, saying in his budget address that he was "open to finding an alternative source of stable funding," for state troopers and giving the money to schools.

Bennett said one such possible source could be asking voters to consider re-dedicating a portion of Oregon's gas tax to the state police. That was the case until 1980, when voters okayed putting all the money toward highway repairs instead.

In the 2003 session, a proposed ballot measure that would have allowed using gas tax money to fund state police passed the Senate, but died in the House at the last minute.

But Swift said state troopers are leery about that plan, pointing out that voters have twice before rejected ballot measures that would have put state police back into the highway fund, most recently in 2000 by a 60 percent vote.

"People want the highway money to fix highways, to widen more lanes for their cars," he said. "But the public is not going to vote us in there. Any scheme or program that resolved funding issues by moving state police into the highway fund is doomed to failure and should not be tried, at least at this point."