SALEM – Gov. Ted Kulongoski applauds this week’s decisions by voters in Multnomah County, Beaverton and Wallowa County to steer more money to their local schools – but he sees dark clouds gathering behind the silver lining.

He fears one result will be a widening gap between what the state’s schools offer to students, particularly among rural districts.

”Where the state has been working so hard over the past 10 years on equalization, you’ve just exacerbated that issue,” he said in an interview. ”It does, to me, pose an issue as to equality around Oregon on the funding of schools.”

As a hedge against the creation of education haves and have-nots, the governor intends to propose a fund of between $300 and $500 million that would be outside the state’s shared school account.

Those dollars, rather than being divvied up among all the state’s school children, would be distributed as grants to districts to ensure all of them can guarantee a full school year.

”That is how I think you get back some of the equality between the urban and rural districts,” he said.

School lobbyists said they haven’t heard enough details to comment on specifics. But Tricia Bosak of the Oregon Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said she’d be more excited to hear plans to put additional dollars into the shared school fund.

”We should be putting more in,” she said.

The idea borrows from a similar $200 million fund that was created two years ago to help students with reading, but then emptied by lawmakers as they struggled to find money in the wake of the economic downturn.

In addition, in a reversal from the previous administration, Kulongoski said he’s willing to change how the state treats federal forest aid money for counties with national forestland.

In 2001, legislators decided that federal subsidies to forest counties under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 should be included as part of the school equalization formula. In effect, those dollars – this year $32 million – would be shared by all of the state’s 198 districts.

But to officials and lawmakers in what would be subsidized counties, the statewide distribution of the money is unfair.

Sen. Steve Harper, R-Klamath Falls, calls it ”theft.”

”This thing is bigger than the amount of dollars, it’s a moral issue because they stole the money,” he said. ”And quite frankly there is going to be no discussion about school funding until we clear it up.”

Kulongoski said he’s not certain how that money ought to be spent, but he’s willing to reopen the debate.

”The rural communities, especially those that receive the payments in lieu of taxes, are very concerned about what is done with the timber money,” he said. ”I think that is a major piece in bringing equality to the rural districts and I think it is on the table.”

Rep. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, said he’s supportive of an idea that lets rural schools tap into forest money in exchange for a boost in the money districts can raise locally.

Still, he cautioned that won’t solve long-term funding uncertainty for schools, whether urban or rural.

”It would be easy for people in Portland or Beaverton to say we’ve solved problem for our folks, but this is just as critical a problem because there still are many schools struggling and we need to do something.”

James Sinks can be reached at 503-566-2839 or at jamess@cyberis.net.