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As expected, members of the Conference Committee on the 2008
Supplemental Operating Budget met today to sign its report,
essentially approving the final, compromise budget as negotiated by
House and Senate budget-writers and leadership. Conference Committees
used to be established to actually negotiate on a budget bill, then
sign an agreed upon compromise; however, joint rules adopted by the
Legislature require meetings of Conference Committees to be public
meetings. Because Democrats have near-super majorities in both the
House and Senate, there is no need to include minority Republicans (or
the public) in budget deliberations, so deals are struck behind the
scenes and a Conference Committee is only established after a final
compromise is reached. The one meeting of the Conference Committee,
then, is not held to negotiate a budget, but only to sign off on an
already accepted, bargained document. By Legislative rules, the
conference report must sit “on the bar” for 24 hours before it is
acted upon by the full House and Senate, so it is presumed each body
will adopt the budget tomorrow, the last day allowed for this 2008
Legislative Session. The House and Senate can only accept or reject
the conference report; no additional amendments are allowed.
The final 2008 Supplemental Operating Budget appropriates an
additional $230 million (General Fund-State) above the underlying
2007-09 budget adopted last year. Including “Near General Fund”
appropriations (totaling approximately $306 million), the revised
2007-09 Operating Budget will appropriate $33.7 billion. The new
budget will leave $835 million in reserve for future budgets — this
figure includes $389 million in unrestricted reserves and $446 million
in the new, harder to access, voter-authorized Budget Stabilization
Account. Legislators essentially split the difference between their
proposed $750 million reserves and Governor Gregoire’s requested
reserves of $900 million.
For K-12 education, the final budget includes policy enhancements of
$49.8 million above the appropriations provided in the underlying
2007-09 budget. This final compromise, however, is below the original
House proposal
($58.7 million)
and the original Senate proposal
($66.0 million). Additionally,
approximately $55.9 million will be provided for mandatory maintenance
level increases.
WSSDA’s End of Session Summary will provide comprehensive details of
the K-12 portion of the final 2008 Supplemental Operating Budget;
however, we provide some of the major highlights below:
• Salaries – The House proposed a 1% COLA (beyond the I-732
COLA) for educators; the Senate did not include this funding in its
budget. The final budget splits the difference and provides a 0.5%
COLA to educators.
• Extended Learning Opportunities – The Senate proposed an
increase ($26.9 million) for extended learning programs (including a
significant increase in the Learning Assistance Program). The House
provided an increase in LAP ($1.6 million), but nothing else. The
final budget includes $17.9 million for a LAP enhancement.
• Classified Staff Ratio – The Senate wanted to reduce the
current classified staff ratio of 1 per 59 students to 1 per 58
students ($12.5 million). The House did not include this funding. The
final budget provides $3.1 million to lower the classified staff ratio
to 1 per 58.75 students.
• School Librarians – The Senate proposed $11.7 million to
enhance school library materials and services, while the House
declined to include any funding. The final budget provides $4.0
million, providing an allocation of approximately $4 per student for
library enhancements.
• Career and Technical Education – Both the House and Senate
proposals included $3.0 million for enhancements to career and
technical programs. The final budget lowers that enhancement to $2.8
million.
• Levy Equalization – Both houses adopted budgets increasing
the “per pupil inflator” by 6 percent in the 2008-09 school year. The
final budget includes the same funding ($1.9 million) to increase
state funding for Local Effort Assistance (LEA or levy equalization)
as a result of the change in the per pupil inflator.
• OSPI Technology – The original House and Senate budgets
included funding to update OSPI’s apportionment system. The final
budget provides $1.8 million as proposed by both houses.
• End of Course Assessments – Neither original budget included
funding for End of Course Assessments; however, legislation has been
adopted requiring the development of the assessments in math. The
final budget includes $3.2 million to accomplish this.
• Non-Employee Related Costs – While the House budget included
a NERC enhancement of $13.1 million, the Senate did not include any
new funding. The final budget includes $6.5 million in additional NERC
funding.
• WASL – Both the House and Senate proposals included $25.4
million to renew OSPI’s expiring assessment contract. Both proposals
also included $12.4 million in “savings” due to required changes to
the WASL (specifically the reduction of “open-ended” questions and the
increase in multiple choice questions). There was a minor difference
in expected contract savings between the houses, however. The final
budget includes an increase of $16.6 million for WASL-related items
(including $3.2 million for End of Course Assessments addressed
above). As the Senate proposed, however, the final budget transfers
much of this funding to the Office of Financial Management (OFM). In
order to release funding to OSPI, OFM will be required to conduct
quarterly evaluations to ensure OSPI is meeting legislative
requirements. Additionally, a legislative WASL workgroup is
established to review and evaluate the state’s assessment system and
make recommendations to improve it. (Yet another example of the
Legislature’s growing lack of faith in OSPI.)
• Full-day Kindergarten – The House proposed to “save” $8.0
million by freezing the expansion of full-day kindergarten. The Senate
proposal and the final budget maintain the funding provided in the
underlying budget to phase-in full-day kindergarten to schools in the
top 20 percent of poverty.
• Promoting Academic Success – While neither original budget
made major changes to the PAS program, the final budget eliminates the
program (saving $19.3 million) at the end of the 2007-08 school year.
Along with these major highlights, the final 2008 Supplemental
Operating Budget (consisting of more than 400 pages) includes numerous
budget “provisos” — language specifying exactly how certain funding is
supposed to be expended. As with all budget documents (and most other
bills) the “devil is in the details.” It will take some time to
thoroughly review the budget and examine each of these provisos.
Information following that review will be included in WSSDA’s End of
Session Summary. One piece of good news about provisos, however: the
final budget does NOT include previously included language specifying
how classified staff salary increases were to be handled. Thank you to
the many school directors and administrators who contacted
budget-writers and local legislators to express your concerns about
this very troublesome (and costly) language.
With the Operating
Budget Conference Committee report completed and signed (along with
the completion of negotiations on the Capital Budget and the
Transportation Budget), the end of this session should come as
scheduled tomorrow night. |
