Voters approved the kicker. Voters put it in the Oregon Constitution. And of course, it wouldn’t be a legislative session if there wasn’t more debate about what to do about the kicker.

State Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, who helped embed the kicker in the state constitution, would like the kicker to go back to being a check sent to Oregonians, as it used to be. Now it comes later as part of an individual’s tax return.

State Sens. Lew Frederick and Kayse Jama, both Portland Democrats, have Senate Joint Resolution 26. It would effectively end the kicker for personal income taxpayers. Passage of SJR 26 would refer a constitutional amendment to voters at the next general election.

The kicker is unique among the 50 states. When the general fund revenues exceed the forecasted amount by more than 2%, the state is required to return the excess amount to taxpayers. It has proven hard for state forecasters to predict revenues within that 2%. The kicker kicked in the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 tax years. For instance, the mean payment was about $914 for the 2018 tax year.

The prediction has been that the personal kicker may be a total of $3.7 billion when taxpayers file their returns in 2024. Corporations may also have a big kicker, $1.3 billion, but that goes to K-12 schools. With so much money at stake, you have to know legislators are thinking about it.

Before Tina Kotek was Gov. Tina Kotek, she had pushed for alternative uses for the personal kicker.

In 2018, she proposed taking the projected kicker to help pay down some of the state unfunded liability for the state’s retirement for public employees. She also had proposed taking half of the kicker in 2019 and using it instead for transportation projects. Neither of those proposals went anywhere.

Other alternatives for the personal kicker have been proposed. When Knute Buehler, a Republican, was running for governor he suggested diverting the kicker temporarily toward the state’s rainy day fund until it built up to 20% or so of the general fund. Oregon’s budget does have those rainy years.

So many bills have been introduced this session that there is no way the Legislature has time to get to them all. SJR 26 may never get a hearing or just a hearing and nothing else. But if you have strong feelings about the kicker, let your legislator and Gov. Kotek know.