SAIF settlement timely.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Oregonians will make a billion-dollar decision in less than two months when they vote on Measure 38. The initiative would require the sale of SAIF Corporation, the state-owned workers' compensation company. In that context, the argument over whether SAIF properly reported past lobbying expenses is a minor squabble. A settlement of the dispute would help Oregonians focus on the more consequential question of SAIF's future.

The state Government Standards and Practices Commission announced the proposed settlement Wednesday; the commission's board will consider approving it next week. The settlement would lay to rest accusations that for a four-year period ending in 2002, SAIF misreported more than $1 million in payments to former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt and a public relations firm that should have been listed as lobbying expenses. Instead, SAIF would pay a $2,000 penalty for its failure to report $225 in meal expenses for employees engaged in lobbying.

That's a big step down in the scope and seriousness of the accusations against SAIF. State Sen. Vicki Walker, D-Eugene, who made the accusations in a complaint filed last December, believes the settlement lets SAIF off the hook.

But the SAIF executives who approved the contracts with Goldschmidt and others have resigned. The insurer's interim leader, Brenda Rocklin, is working to establish a new culture of openness and accountability. Commission investigators said it would be difficult to prove that SAIF had improperly reported its lobbying expenses.

Even Walker concedes that the legal distinction between advertising and lobbying - the distinction on which the complaint against SAIF rested - is blurry.

Walker says greater clarity in the law is needed, and she's right. The SAIF case also shows that the Government Standards and Practices Commission has a hard time dealing with complicated, high-profile complaints. Walker and her legislative colleagues should work to increase the commission's investigatory horsepower by providing greater budgetary and staff support.

Regardless of whether SAIF's payments to Goldschmidt and others were properly reported, it's clear that they were politically clumsy. A publicly owned entity can't write big checks to a former governor for unspecified services without raising suspicion, even alarm. And the agency still faces a contempt-of-court charge for failing to disclose documents, along with a state police investigation for the alleged destruction of documents.

These troubling issues, however, are dwarfed by Measure 38, an initiative sponsored by Liberty Northwest, SAIF's primary private competitor in the workers' compensation business. Liberty Northwest has worked to fan the flames of accusations against SAIF, hoping to damage its competitor politically. But voters need to keep their eye on the main issue - which is not whether lobbying expenses were misreported, but whether the state is well-served by a publicly owned worker's compensation insurer.

Measure 38 would fundamentally alter the workers' compensation system in Oregon. Compared to the initiative's effects, the quarrel over lobbying expenses is a sideshow.

Putting the lobbying complaint to rest should make it easier for Oregonians to focus on the bigger questions involving the nature of the state's business climate, the premiums paid by thousands of employers and the quality of services for injured workers.