Posted on April 11, 2012 by Doug
After working through the night and getting a little rest, I am ready to take a preliminary look back at what we accomplished in the 2012 legislative session. Okay, it wasn’t just the session that began in January, as Ehren will point out. You really have to go back to the December 2011 special session for the beginning of the 2012 session. So all in all over the last 4 months we have had a short 60 day session and 2.1 special sessions (the .1 is for the special session that began at midnight today and ended at 7:30 am this morning).
It has been a grueling schedule for all who have actively participated in it. For our members who stuck with us through thick and thin, I want to thank you for your time, effort, and advocacy for not only yourself, but the many members who are too overwhelmed in their day to day lives to participate in our lobbying efforts.
No cuts to education
The supplemental budget that passed this morning, 3ESHB 2127, didn’t cut education to balance the budget. Legislator’s job to balance the $512 million budget shortfall received an expected boost with the discovery of a $238 million bookkeeping shift of funds that helped balance the budget. Specifically:
- There actually were some small increases of $13 million for a couple K 12 education programs ($6 million for new teacher evaluation systems).
- There was a $50 reduction in state employee insurance funding from $850 to $800 (a savings of $33 million) but this will have no impact on employee costs.
- The K 12 retiree payment starting September 1, 2012, will be cut by $0.84 cents to $65.17.
- I did fund a small cut ($1.3 million) in BECCA / truancy funding however this cut was at the court level, not the school district level.
Insurance Reform
I will cover our successful effort to reform K 12 insurance in a subsequent entry. What I can say here is that we sought transformational change in the $1.3 billion K 12 insurance industry so that the system was more responsive to the inequity in insurance affordability in the following three categories: singles and family coverage; classified and certificated; and, part-time and full-time funding. Though the final product is not perfect, we are confident that in the year’s ahead the efforts we made this year will achieve substantial improvement in all three of these areas. We have received numerous commitments from legislators that they look forward to working with PSE to improve on our efforts this year.
Four Day School Week
There were a variety of efforts early in the session to encourage more school districts to go to a 4 day school week. HB 2215, HB 2479, and SB 6050, were all given hearings but did not make it out of committee. We were very pleased that a major focus of concern, and a likely cause of these bills defeat, was the negative impact they would have on classified employees.
Posted on March 16, 2012 by Doug
The first week of special session is just about concluded with a smattering of political theater and a new Senate budget. This budget was again introduced by Senate republicans joined by 3 democrats. The education cuts have disappeared but there are a couple of pension issues that continue in this budget: reducing early retirement benefits for employees hired after June 30, 2012, and a one year delay in the $143 million unfunded liability payment for PERS/TRS 1.
There is a continued funding for 6442 but they also added $780,000 funding for “10 charter schools” (Governor Gregoire has threatened a veto if the charter school provision gets to her desk). We take some comfort from the fact that she didn’t threaten to veto 6442 if it makes it to her desk.
Posted on March 10, 2012 by Doug
Ever since the Senate Republican’s were joined by 3 democrats, the legislature has appeared to be confused what to do next. Certainly there were steps made to force through another budget on the last day of the session, but that Budget, produced by the House, was doomed to failure because there weren’t enough votes to pass it in the Senate.
The same confusion existed on SB 6442, the K 12 health insurance reform measure. The bill was placed on the calendar for a vote on the Senate floor three times. Each time it was put down by uncertainty whether the timing was right. The last attempt occurred yesterday when it showed up on the calendar in the morning and then we waited, waited, and waited for it to come up for a vote. Finally when it was brought up, the same 25 Senators who passed the Senate Budget last Friday, passed a motion to delay a vote until a later time.
When is that later time? The regular session was then ended and the special session begins on Monday. We will see if more action occurs during special session. In the meantime, we still encourage PSE members to contact their Senators and Representatives and let them know why we can’t wait another year for insurance reform. If we do, the only result will be more classified employees and their families without insurance.
Posted on March 3, 2012 by Doug
Last night’s Senate republican budget, SB 5967 was introduced. The higher education cuts are student related (tuition waivers reduced funding by $30 million and out of state tuition payments reduced $8 million). That means there weren’t operational cuts at all for CWU, WWU, or WSU. The same insurance funding reduction from $850 to $800 was in the Budget the same as the previous budgets (this $33 million reduction is taken out of reserves).
The K 12 cuts were in readiness to learn ($8.4 million) and reduction for national board certified teachers from $5,000 down to $2,500 ($17.3 million). They did not delay the $340 million payment to school districts from the end of June to the first of July, they did not cut levy equalization or the BECCA funding of $940,000 that was in the previous Senate budget.
Finally, they funded the start-up costs for the K 12 consolidation of insurance benefits.
Go here for more detail on the cuts and adds.
Posted on March 3, 2012 by Doug
The dust has not yet cleared on last nights, actually, they finished around 2:00 am this morning, political coup. The republican takeover of the Senate changes everyone’s predictions how or when this session will end. It is too early to tell for sure since the Senators are now meeting in their caucuses to figure out what the next steps will be (we only have 5 days left in the 60 day session). All indications are that we are headed into a special session.
Republicans joined with 3 democrats to reach the 25 votes necessary to do whatever they wanted to do last night. The remaining 24 democrats put up a good fight but were unable to change the direction the republicans were taking them. This hijacking will lead to a certain level of distrust that wasn’t there before and is likely to slow the process down as legislators check and double check commitments to legislation. PSE will be doing the same thing for 6442.
Posted on February 21, 2012 by Doug
The House budget proposal was presented earlier this morning. A hearing will be held this afternoon and I would expect it to be approved by the House by the end of the week and then sent on to the Senate (I expect the Senate to have their budget out early next week).
Remember, legislators have a roughly $1 billion hole in the budget they have to fill so it is difficult to see any of the following as positive. There is small consolation in saying “the cuts weren’t as big as we expected in some areas.”
Key points of the budget:
• Higher education – CWU had a 3% cut, WWU – 2.5% cut, WSU – 3% cut.
• State employee insurance funding reduced from $850 to $800 – this doesn’t cut employee benefits since the insurance plan had plenty in reserve to cover this reduction.
• K 12 apportionment for the month of June delayed 1 day to July 1 – temporarily saves $340 million
• Levy equalization – May and June payments delayed until July – temporarily saves $75 million
o August levy equalization rate will be reduced from 14% to 12% – this reduces future payments to all school districts equally
o January 1, 2014, maximum levy percentage will be reduced 4%
• BECCA / Truancy funding eliminated effective April 1, 2012 – saves $8.8 million
• Small high school (high schools with less than 300 students) funding reduced by 2 teachers (from 9 certificated to 7) – saves $11.5 million
• National board bonus for teachers reduced from $5,090 to $4,000 – saves $8.3 million
• There were a few new small revenue streams in the budget amounting to $51 million in additional revenue.
There is no way to say this is a good budget because it continues for the fourth successive year a budget heavily burdened with cuts with very little effort to develop new revenue sources.
Posted on February 17, 2012 by Doug
Less demand for government services and slightly higher revenue than expected, combined to give legislators a reason to smile. Okay, maybe not a smile but certainly a look of relief. The look of, “maybe we have finally passed the worst part of the recession” was on most of the budget writers faces.
$330 million less in expenses and $45 million more in revenue ended up reducing the budget shortfall from $1.5 billion to $1.25 billion (assuming they leave about $500 – 600 million in reserves).
The largest cause of the reduced expenses was K 12 enrollment lower (by 10,000) than expected. According to the report, “there appear to be three major factors for this reduction:
• A larger than expected reduction in enrollment resulting from ALE policy changes made
by the 2011 legislature. It was expected that there would be a reduction and a step
adjustment was included in the June forecast. The actual reduction appears significantly
larger than expected.
• Fewer transfers from private to public school. The poor economy resulted in a decline in
private school enrollment starting in October 2008 and averaging 1,000 students per year
through 2010. In contrast, private enrollment increased in October 2011.
• Less net migration into Washington. A significant portion of the typical year to year
growth in Washington public school enrollment comes from a net gain in state population
from migration. Our estimates suggest that net migration reached a 10 year low in 2011.
Posted on December 14, 2011 by dougnelson
The second special session of 2011 is quickly coming to a close. Surprising to just about everyone, including the press who were reporting yesterday that the legislature would conclude possibly by Friday or Saturday, it looks to me like it will end today.
The agreed to cuts/changes/fund transfers, the most significant of which is the $50 million delay of school bus purchasing payments by 10 months, have not faced a serious challenge on either the House or Senate floor. Yes there were those who argued that not enough was done to cut, and those who argued not enough was done to raise revenue, however in the end, the sentiment at the outset that not much would get done, turned out to be accurate. A final note is that higher education escaped without any cuts!
I’ll update this once the final gavel goes down and the bills are sent to the Governor.
Update: Sine die at 3:45 pm. Now we get to enjoy the holiday break and recharge our batteries for the upcoming 2012 session which begins on January 9. Enjoy your holidays!!!
Posted on December 12, 2011 by dougnelson
It appears that the House and Senate have reached a general agreement on initial cuts/fund transfers/caseload changes so that they take care of $500 million of the $2 billion budget shortfall. There are no cuts to higher education but one change will affect the purchase of school buses: a 10 month delay on the state’s payments for new bus purchases (this delay saves the budget $49 million).
Otherwise not much to get too excited about. However, those who would like more details, here they are.
The House Ways and Means committee will be hearing the agreement today. You can expect there will be small changes to the agreement along the way as it makes it through the House and Senate and then to the Governor’s desk. The hope is that they will conclude their work no later than this coming Saturday, the 17th.
UPDATE: The public hearing consisted of approximately 5 individuals with very few critical comments. Chairman Hunter commented that he was surprised there was so little comment (he took that as a positive silent statement of support for the changes).
Posted on December 1, 2011 by dougnelson
Less than 15 minutes ago at the House Education Appropriations committee hearing, I testified about Governor Gregoire’s supplemental budget and revenue package. I don’t have the footage from the hearing yet, but will update this entry when I get it.
Basically, I testified the same as I did yesterday:
1. Higher education has suffered enough cuts and the legislature should reduce the Governor’s cuts;
2. We oppose levy equalization cuts since they don’t hit all school districts;
3. If the legislature is going to cut 4 days, we urge them to cut all employee groups the same. That means the superintendents, assistant superintendents, teachers, and classified;
4. We support the Governor’s revenue and buyback package;
5. The insurance decrease will only increase the problem our members are having paying for insurance coverage for their children and families. That increases our interest in the consolidation plan that the HCA will be introducing on December 15 and debated in the 2012 session. And on another related subject, the legislature has the right to know how the $750 million they are funding for K 12 insurance is being spent.
Well, the WEA lobbyist focused the last part of testimony on Doug Nelson and opposed what I said. You need to know that it is very unusual for a fellow lobbyist to personally identify a lobbyist for another organization when describing their organization’s position. It is basically a slap in the face, in public, and on TV.
More on this when I get the link to the testimony.
Update #1: Here is the link to the testimony.
