REPORT FOR FEBRUARY 26
 

On Tuesday afternoon, budget-writers in the Senate released their 2008 Supplemental Operating Budget and 2008 Supplemental Capital Construction Budget proposals (they released their 2008 Supplemental Transportation Budget yesterday). Like the House’s plan, the Senate’s operating budget proposal would keep approximately $750 million “in the bank” for future budgets (both unrestricted reserves and the Budget Stabilization Account). Originally, we had been hearing that Senate leadership wanted to keep much more funds in reserve than the House; however, when given the choice between more reserves and more spending, they chose more spending.

In a press conference to unveil the budget proposals, Sen. Margarita Prentice, Chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said that the Senate Democrats were proud of the historic investments they made in the 2007-09 budget for K-12 education — and they are proud that their 2008 Supplemental Budget maintains those commitments to K-12 education. Senate budget-writers contrasted their plan to keep the 2007-09 K-12 budget whole with the House’s K-12 budget which makes cuts to all-day kindergarten, vocational equipment and high school completion programs. Sen. Prentice bluntly stated that the Senate would not accept anything less than full funding for the all-day kindergarten phase-in authorized in the underlying 2007-09 budget. Two other major differences deal with teacher salaries and Non-Employee Related Costs. The House’s budget plan would provide a 1 percent across-the-board cost of living adjustment for teachers ($36 million) and would add a $13 per student enhancement to the current NERC allocation ($13 million). The Senate proposal includes neither of these enhancements. Instead they propose to: fund a targeted outreach program ($27 million) to assist students who are not on track to graduate; lower the ratio of classified staff per student ($12.5 million), which would help districts rely less on local levies to cover classified staff costs and free up those dollars for basic education programs; and expand funding for school libraries ($11.7 million). We will have additional details on the K-12 portion of the Senate’s budget proposal in our next Impact newsletter. Also, view this PDF file to determine the estimated impact of the Senate’s budget on individual districts — please note that these figures are estimates only and only include impacts of the major items in the budget.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee held a public hearing on the Senate budget proposal this afternoon and is scheduled to pass it out of Committee tomorrow. The full Senate plans to act on the budget in the next few days and then budget-writers in the House and the Senate (and presumably Gov Gregoire) will begin negotiating a compromise budget in earnest. There are less than three weeks left in this 2008 Regular Legislative Session; however, there does not appear to be any reason to anticipate legislators will be unable to complete their business on time.

As the legislative focus turns to budget issues, legislative committees continue to meet — with a flurry of activity. Legislators in policy committees are rushing to adopt bills from the opposite house before the next rapidly approaching cut-off deadline. All bills must be passed out of their opposite house policy committees by this Friday, Feb. 29, in order to remain alive.

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Legislative Reports are prepared by WSSDA's Governmental Relations staff team: Dan Steele (360/252-3010) and Sheila Chard (360/252-3011). If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please contact us.