Legislative panel OKs resolution to keep state programs running.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

SALEM - With the state budget set to expire next Monday, lawmakers took their first steps Tuesday to keep programs running and money flowing to clients until they can reach agreement.

With little debate or discord, the Joint Ways and Means Committee approved a continuing resolution that will allow all programs that rely on the state general fund - primarily education, health and human services and public safety programs - to maintain current spending levels for the next month while lawmakers try to close a deal on the full two-year spending cycle that starts July 1.

Although the Legislature usually has budgets in place before the new biennium arrives, it's not unheard of to pass continuing resolutions to keep government programs running while loose ends are tied up.

Daron Hill, a manager with the state Budget and Management Division, said the state doesn't foresee any complications for Oregonians who rely on a steady flow of money from the state's coffers to programs and services.

"It should be invisible to folks," he said. "As long as it's signed by June 30, everything should be fine."

The Legislature's continuing resolution comes as human services recipients have struggled through months of uncertainty about whether their programs would be continued.

Seniors who receive in-home assistance and disabled people who rely on the state's Medically Needy program to cover the costs of prescriptions are among those who have received notices in recent months informing them services would soon be cut off, and then been notified that services were temporarily restored, sometimes at reduced levels.

One of the few groups caught up in a new wave of uncertainty are those frail elderly Oregonians who rely on Project Independence for assistance with routine activities such as preparing meals, shopping and personal hygiene.

Because the governor and legislative leaders hadn't included money in the proposed 2003-05 budget for Project Independence, agencies throughout the state sent letters notifying clients and their contracted care providers that their program would be discontinued July 1.

But it now appears the continuing resolution will allow the program to carry on for at least one more month, said association director Jacqueline Zimmer Jones.

"It's a frightening world for seniors right now," she said. "Unfortunately, we've alarmed them again."

The continuing resolution passed in routine fashion, but only after some lawmakers threatened to oppose it because it continued to suspend funding for commissions that advocate on behalf of women and minority groups.

Rep. Randy Miller, a Lake Oswego Republican and the House's co-chairman of the joint committee, said legislators in the end had to accept that the resolution doesn't assume what budget priorities will prevail when the 2003-05 budget gets hammered out.

"All this is is a placeholder," he said.