Peter,

The following is a summary of my presentation at the last IFS meeting on February 1, 2002. I did not have a writen text, so did my best to remember what I said and then borrowed from "Talking Points" given to me by OHSU Administration. The "Talking Points" were part of the handouts I left for all to read.

Thank you,  Kirsten 

In July, 2001 OHSU took a 10 million-dollar cut which resulted in the closure of the dental hygiene program and several rural nursing programs, large reductions in care provided to severely disabled children from the CDRC, 15% increase in tuition to all dental students, and 40% increase in tuition to incoming medical students, etc. A further budget cut would undermine many of OHSUs educational programs and restrict indigent care.

I have spearheaded a grassroots effort by the dental school to let the legislators know we cannot take a further budget cut. We have done phone and e-mail campaigns, and taken 6-7 groups of students down to Salem to meet with legislators. There have been several lessons we have learned. 1) Established relationships with legislators are critical to open communication during times of crisis. 2) Misunderstandings and misinformation are extremely difficult to overcome. 3) A number of legislators knew very little about the Dental School. Therefore, I would like to share our experiences with you.

We have had several factors working against us.

Student groups are well received in Salem. We had both dental students and dental hygiene students visiting. There are still legislators who claim to be hearing for the first time that the dental hygiene program has been closed and that it is training one third of all the hygiene graduates in Oregon. They dont seem to know that there is already a workforce shortage in dental hygiene and soon will be one in dentistry. We need to keep educating our legislators!

There have been claims that the hospital has a $33M profit. This is extremely misleading. Gains in the hospital are offset by losses in the university budget, leaving OHSU to project a break-even budget for this fiscal year. The immediate future is likely to be bleaker, not brighter. The economic downturn, rising health care costs, and the current labor dispute all affect the bottomline.

There have been claims that OHSU deceived the legislature about new found Medicaid payments. This is absolutely untrue. The level of these funds were not confirmed until October of 2001, after the legislative session. In June, OMAP was still predicting increases in these pass-throughs would be offset by decreases in other related educational pass-throughs to OHSU. This and all other sources of revenue are, and always have been, included in OHSUs budget projections, using the best information available at the time. They are included in every OHSU Board docket and provided to the Legislative Fiscal Office and all others who are on the Board mailing list.

These funds are not a windfall in any event. They are provided to safety net hospitals to cover the extraordinary cost of services provided - not for general budgetary purposes.

There remains a lot of confusion on the part of many legislators about what the "public corporation" status is that OHSU now has versus its previous status as a part of Oregon Higher Education. A good simple explanation of this status is that OHSU receives grant dollars from the state in exchange for providing the indigent patient care and educational programs. However, the university is run like a corporation and this money is just one source of income to the corporation and it is designated for and used for the services mentioned above when it is added to other revenue sources.

And the nurse strike has definitely hurt us. The Oregon Nurses Association has been putting pressure on the legislature to not restore the 33 million-dollar cut they first proposed. More importantly many legislators we have talked to are clearly siding with the nurses. They have repeatedly told our students that OHSU needs to take care of the nurses strike first! Yet, the package offered to the nurses back in December, would make many of us faculty envious! A nurse with a BS degree and 5 years of experience would make around $51K with about $435 towards health care and an additional 12% paid by the university towards their retirement fund. The current offer on the table is a 7% increase for the next two years and 6.5% increase for the third year.

Finally, a matter that is a little closer to home for IFS regards Mark Nelson. Mark is the paid lobbyist for the Association of Oregon Faculty. Yet, Mark distributed a list of possible fund sources around the legislators that included the misinformation about OHSU Medicaid passthroughs. Yet, on this same list Mark did not mention increasing taxes on alcohol or tobacco. Mark is also paid by these industries. Currently, we have had some progress in conversations with Mark and hope to have this resolved.

People we thought would be our friends seemed to have turned against us. The lesson for us all is the importance of maintaining communication with state legislators.

Kirsten J Lampi, PhD
Assistant Professor
Oral Molecular Biology
611 SW Campus Dr
Portland, OR 97201
503-494-8620 Office
503-494-8918 Fax