Damage control needed.

Byline: The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran 12/29/03): An editorial on Page B2 of Sunday's edition misidentified former House Majority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend.

Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Karen Minnis acted quickly to freeze legislative staff members' pay next year, following reports of bonuses and salary increases. The legislative leaders recognized that the bonuses and raises, approved by former House Majority Leader Tim Knoop, sent precisely the wrong message about the state's spending priorities. Knoop offered several several explanations, and each one made his generosity with the public's money sound worse.

Six aides to the House Republican office received bonuses of between $2,500 and $5,500, along with pay raises of 5 percent. Forty employees of Republican leaders or non-partisan legislative offices were given raises averaging 5.2 percent.

Knoop said the workers deserved to be rewarded, and there's no reason to doubt him on that score. People who work in the Capitol performed under trying circumstances during a legislative session that set a record for length. But much is being asked of state workers throughout Oregon. Their workloads are increasing while their colleagues are laid off, and their pay has been frozen for the 2003-05 biennium.

Frozen, that is, except for the fact that in contract negotiations Gov. Ted Kulongoski agreed to give bonuses of $350 to some unionized state employees and cover increased health insurance costs. Then the governor gave the same $350 bonus and increase in health benefits to nonunion workers and managers.

Kulongoski's action was widely criticized, with Republicans leading the chorus. The critics rightly claimed that any optional increases are unavoidably regarded as coming at the expense of state services, many of which have been curtailed and most of which will be cut still further if voters reject a package of legislatively approved tax increases in a Feb. 3 special election. The bonuses will have a relatively minor effect on the state budget, but Oregonians' willingness to support tax increases will be eroded if they sense that the money will be used to increase state workers' pay rather than to preserve public services.

The even larger bonuses and increases approved by Knoop sent the same signal. Many Oregonians are skeptical of the need for a tax increase, or believe that cuts in state services are designed to make the state's financial crisis seem worse than it really is. News of bonuch checks and pay raises reinforces those suspicions.

Knoop further pointed out that the money for the raises and bonuses was already in the House Republican Office budget, and consequently would not result in increased costs to the taxpayers. Yet the taxpayers are the ultimate source of every dollar in the office's budget. Republicans often accuse governments of spending all the money available to them, rather than returning any surplus to the general fund. Until Minnis and Courtney stepped in, Knoop had provided proof.

Knoop further claimed that the bonuses were approved at a time when it appeared that some legislative employees would lose their jobs, and the money was intended to support them while they sought other employment. But no layoffs occurred. Knoop's explanation made it sound as though the workers were entitled to severance pay for jobs they never lost.

It's a safe bet that the legislative workers are generally overworked and underpaid. They should be rewarded for their service, and encouraged to remain in public employment. The same can be said of state workers generally. But in a time when Oregonians are losing life-saving health care services, when the school year is being shortened, when crimes are going uninvestigated because police are spread too thin, and when the state is asking people to pay higher taxes, Knoop's largess was badly misplaced. Courtney and Minnis were right to step in and attempt to repair the damage.