Posted on 03/11/2016 5:57:04 AM PST by MarvinStinson
As Oregon lawmakers celebrated passage of a historic minimum wage hike last week, leaders at each of the seven public universities were pulling out their calculators.
Oregon's four-year universities collectively pay thousands of mostly student workers the minimum wage, and those workers will be owed millions in the coming years as that wage ratchets up across the state.
"This is a big hit," Di Saunders, Oregon Institute of Technology's associate vice president of communications, said in an email.
The law also comes as universities budget for a two-year funding cycle with an expectation that the state financial picture will take a significant turn for the worse, driven in part by massive public-pension obligations.
"It creates some tough choices," Steve Clark, Oregon State University's spokesman said of additional minimum-wage costs.
The first step of Oregon's new wage law goes into effect in July, when the minimum wage will increase 50 cents, to $9.75 an hour. Hourly pay will eventually rise to to $14.75 inside Portland's urban growth boundary, $13.50 in midsize counties and $12.50 in rural areas by 2022.
At Portland State, where pension obligations are expected to jump by $13 million in the 2017-19 two-year budget cycle, there are few places to turn. Minimum wage will cost PSU an estimated $2.5 million more during the biennium.
"We anticipate we will address these [wages] through budget cuts and increased revenue," Suzanne Pardington Effros, PSU spokeswoman, said in an email.
Tobin Klinger, a University of Oregon spokesman, said the vast majority of employees making the minimum are students not working in federally funded work-study jobs. They're hired by the schools and paid hourly, and they work in administrative offices, maintenance jobs and elsewhere on campus. ] Oregon's new minimum could put more money in some students' pockets, but it will more likely lead administrations to either cut back on the number of students they hire or the number of hours they're allowed to work. Officials will likely turn to another frequent source of revenue to make up the difference: tuition dollars.
At the University of Oregon, where the Board of Trustees just voted to raise tuition by 4.8 percent for in-state students in the fall, the new wage will cost an extra $432,779 to implement during the 2017 fiscal year alone. The annual wage increase would have a compounding effect.
In the 2017-19 biennium, UO would owe an estimated $2.3 million in additional wages. By the next funding cycle, the university would owe an extra $3.4 million in wages, according to university estimates. By the 2021-23 biennium, that figure would top $6.1 million.
Klinger said the minimum wage is "another challenge" universities face, and the school is assessing its options. For the Beavers, the extra wages due to students in the next biennium would be at least $4.8 million. OSU is in a special situation, Clark said, because the school employs students in each of the three state-approved wage areas.
OSU has more than 7,800 student positions, and more than half of them pay less than what will become the new minimum in July.
"It's very complicated for Oregon State and will require decisions to be made," Clark said in an email, adding the law will "affect all aspects of Oregon State's operations and even research that involves student employees." By the 2019 fiscal year, Clark said, the school could look at reducing the number of student jobs by 650 to 700 positions to cut costs.
Oregon's smaller public universities will also feel the pinch.
Western Oregon, where an estimated 886 students are employed, will owe nearly $450,000 in extra wages in the next biennium.
Southern Oregon would owe $299,272 during the same period, while Oregon Institute of Technology would owe a similar figure.
Eastern Oregon would owe its workers an extra $162,907 for the same period.
“No one could have saw this coming..”
Someone in the state prison system will eventually figure a way to challenge this in court, and force the prison to pay the $15 an hour for any work done there.
Increased Revenue=Incerased Tuition and fees for those of you in Rio Linda.
HAHAHAHAHA Maroons!
Enjoy those Hundred Thousand dollar student loans.
Bwahahahaha
“This is a big hit,”
...and something that you likely voted for d-bag. These colleges are filled to the brim with liberals. Simple solution for them though...raise tuitions. Again.
Twenty dollar Happy Meals.....coming right up!
Liberals are on a mission to destroy this country.
Now they will have to boost tuition a corresponding amount plus a bit more to pay for the wage hikes.
Good eduction in applied economics
"Planning ahead" is not a skillset found in large doses on university campuses. Merely observe the wailing and gnashing of teeth at the University of Missouri, and the "unexpected sharp decline" of incoming freshmen for next year.
This doesn’t fit the lefty narrative that minimum wage increases are nothing but good.
Clark said, the school could look at reducing the number of student jobs by 650 to 700 positions to cut costs.
I bet the administrators will still get huge pay increases.
But..But...But... “Progressives” always say that raising the minimum wage does NOT affect the job market! Hmmmm....
At the University of Oregon, where the Board of Trustees just voted to raise tuition by 4.8 percent for in-state students in the fall, the new wage will cost an extra $432,779 to implement during the 2017 fiscal year alone. The annual wage increase would have a compounding effect."
An admission that an artificially high minimum wage costs jobs and increases costs? That actually made it into The Oregonian?
Minimum wage closes the smaller stores and shops and further consolidates the bigger operations.
Kills Main Street, further impersonalizes, further emphasizes the unlimited power and beneficence of Big Brother.
Make everything one.
Tuition dollars. Bottom line. Mom and Dad's pockets or our tax dollars. Mom and Dad, or the voters, won't be told about it until the bill arrives.
And the liberals will tell the brainwashed students how they are sticking it to "the Man" and standing up for students working at the school, which they will believe without question while trying to ignore the downsizing and loss of student jobs.
CANT TAK NO CRIDIT CARD. GO IN SIDE AN PAY.
Hand written sign on pump when I got gas last night.
You do realize that sooner or later all of those loans will be "forgiven" and we will be paying them.
Oddly enough, several things are likely to happen.
1. Replacement of low wage workers with mechanized help...robots.
2. Since liberals and Socialists are perfectly happy to spend other peoples money, they forget that employment is the point. So normal low to medium income families will simply stop buying at these establishments, and let competition do them in.
Liberals forget that these are entry level jobs, existing for the purpose of teaching young people entering the work force with valuable experience as their work history begins.
The good news? People may actually learn how to cook in their own homes. Food quality will become better as they will actually know what’s in their food. People will eat better, they will save gas driving everywhere, and families will actually talk to each other at mealtime, and learn to clean dishes. Grocery stores will sell more food...oh wait, grocery baggers wages will go up too...scratch all of that. /sarc
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