| On Monday
afternoon, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education rolled
out its 2008 Supplemental Budget recommendations. The total spending
included in the Subcommittee's proposal is nearly identical to the
governor's budget request; however, some of the specific items within
the budget are different. The main change is a $5 million enhancement
for Non-Employee Related Costs (NERCs) included in the Subcommittee's
proposal. (Additional details will be included in WSSDA's next Impact
newsletter.) A public
hearing on the new budget recommendations was held today in the
Subcommittee — then the Subcommittee quickly moved to adopt the
proposal. Subcommittee members praised Rep. Kathy Haigh's leadership
as chair and for presenting a "prudent, careful and thoughtful"
budget. Along with the praise, however, there were major criticisms.
Rep. Glenn Anderson expressed his concern that there are minor tweaks
throughout the budget, but no problematic issues are resolved. His
complaint was that at some point the Legislature must stop and
"actually fix something." Anderson mentioned his disappointment that
the Subcommittee did not pick one item to address — and solve — and
set an example for the Joint Task Force on Basic Education Finance.
Rep. Skip Priest echoed these concerns and expressed his
disappointment that, even though the proposal is a significant
improvement over the governor's plan, it still falls "short of
fully funding the state's constitutional paramount duty." He was also
concerned that the 2007 Legislature focused on the many
recommendations from Washington Learns, even though they did not
provide necessary recommendations to fix the education finance system
— and the 2008 Legislature is passing everything on to the Basic
Education Task Force. Priest said the Legislature should be driving
the Task Forces' work — they should not be waiting for the Task Force
to provide direction.
The Subcommittee adopted the
budget proposal along party lines, with 12 Democrats voting "Yes" and
4 Republicans voting "No" (2 Republican members were excused). The
plan now moves to the full Appropriations Committee for its
consideration.
This afternoon, the Senate
Government Operations and Elections Committee held a public hearing on
SB 5271. Returning from last year, SB 5271 would eliminate two
of the current four spring special election dates used by schools and
other local governments. The currently allowed February, March, April
and May dates would be reduced to February and May. Traditionally,
WSSDA and WASA have been strongly opposed to these bills; however,
given the successful passage of the constitutional amendment allowing
the simple majority approval of school levies the election landscape
has changed. Being strongly supported by County Auditors and the
Secretary of State as a "good government" bill, it appears likely the
elimination of two special election dates will be accepted by the
Legislature. Because of this, the WSSDA Board took the pragmatic step
of supporting the idea this year. We are still negotiating the
specific dates with the auditors, but the current options are: (1) the
first Tuesday in February, coupled with the third Tuesday in April; or
(2) the second Tuesday in February, coupled with the second Tuesday in
May. Either option comes with some potential concerns. If you have an
opinion on the options, please contact your WSSDA staff.
Both the House and Senate
Education Committees have begun passing bills out of their respective
committees. Because of the long list of bills that have been moving,
we will provide information in later Updates. |
