Search This Blog

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Article IX, Sections 6 to 10 of the Oregon State Constitution


Article IX of the Oregon State Constitution deals with "Finance".  There are 20 sections in this Article.  Some of the are long.  We will look at the next 5 sections in this post.

Section 6

This section requires that if the expenses exceed income, then the Legislature has to balance the budget the following year.  The language calls for levying a tax.  This should also suggest cutting expenditures.

Section 7

This section defines that spending bills can't contain other provisions such as amending laws on voting or other subjects.  This is a good thing and would prevent using a state government shutdown as a threat to pass other controversial legislation.

Section 8

This section has a no-nonsense requirement for transparent above board government procurement practices, but it also shows a bit of history.  As channeling of money or contracts for supplying paper to the government from local paper mills was such a potentially lucrative business opportunity, they inserted specific language at the level of the constitution to limit any back room dealing.

Section 9

This section prohibits imposing a tax on federally paid benefits.  This seems to be logical and straightforward.  It is just surprising to have the requirement spelled out at this level rather than as a regular law in the section on income tax.

Section 10

This section requires that government employees provide a contribution equal to 6% to the retirement program.

No comments:

Post a Comment