"February 2010" Posts
House committee approves ratio funding
Yesterday, the House Education Appropriations committee amended
2SSB 6760 to include the 58.75:1 classified employee ratio. The effect of this amendment, if this bill is signed into law, means that the 58.75 : 1 ratio will be considered part of basic education.
With the Senate's vote on this issue the other day, we now have both the House and Senate policy committees supporting our ratio. Now we need to make certain that the Senate Ways and Means committee approves 2776 as amended by the Senate Early Learning committee, and the House approves 6760.
Our continuing effort will be to make sure that the hard work we have put into the ratio enhancement sticks in the final days of the session. There are some legislators who are not as convinced as we would like them to be and may try to confuse the issue in the last days of the session.
Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/26/2010 5:06:00 PM
2010 Session
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Basic Ed Finance Reform
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Education Reform
Higher ed bill passes labor committee
PSE's bill
(E2SHB1560) to improve collective bargaining procedures passed another committee yesterday, the Senate labor and commerce committee. Though there was some opposition, the bill passed with an amendment to make it easier to organize 60 employees at the University of Washington. This amendment was an interest of the WFT (Washington Federation of Teachers) and the state labor council. One amendment was stripped off the bill that was an interest of the SEIU 925. That amendment would have changed financial negotiations at the University of Washington.
One interesting thing that seemed too good to be true is that after the committee passed the bill they referred it to the Rules committee. All along we had assumed it would go next to the Senate Ways and Means committee. If this turns out to be true, this will give us a very good chance of this bill getting a Senate vote.
Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/26/2010 4:53:00 PM
2010 Session
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Higher Education
Ratio amendment approved in Senate education committee
This morning, the Senate Early Learning and K 12 committee, passed an amendment that puts the 58.75:1 classified employee ratio into the basic education act; for the first time ever. Once it gets in the basic education act, it will end the annual fight over the ratio funding.
The amendment was to
SHB 2776, the House's bill to implement the quality education council recommendations. PSE has been supportive of this bill because it includes the prototype funding for classified employee positions, it moves forward the transportation funding formula improvements to 2011, and it increases state funding for maintenance, supplies and operating costs. With the above amendment, PSE can unequivocally support the bill.
Here is the vote at this morning's committee meeting (boo! Senator Oemig):
Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/24/2010 11:27:00 PM
2010 Session
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Basic Ed Finance Reform
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Education Reform
Higher ed collective bargaining gets plenty of attention
At last Monday's Senate Labor and Commerce committee hearing, PSE's higher ed collective bargaining bill, E2SHB 1560, had a good hearing (see below for footage of the testimony) with new amendments to consider and new supporters for the legislation.
We had a member from Central Washington University , Lindsey Groci, over to testify and she did an outstanding job. There was a hang up though and that was the fiscal note that was attached to 1560. The fiscal note was $650,000+ dollars. When we have a 2.8 billion dollar deficit this is what we call on the hill “death by fiscal note.”
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Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/24/2010 10:58:00 PM
2010 Session
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Higher Education
3 important higher education issues continue to be debated
Despite both budgets being published, there are several issues affecting higher education classified employees still under consideration.
Insurance Benefits
There is a general recognition that there is roughly a $200 million problem with the PEBB/HCA insurance plan. The fight is over how much the employees will pay and how much the State will pay. The Senate proposed that the State pay roughly $22 million of the costs, get some amount from reserves, and have the employees pay the rest. This was a reduction from the Governor's proposal which would have funded about $51 million of the costs and taking the rest of the cost out of reserves.
The House, on the other hand, made no proposal today on the subject; they didn't have a proposal in place yet. So that put's us in a holding pattern. PSE has testified that employee's have paid enough and it is time for the State to take responsibility for the problem.
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Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/24/2010 10:40:00 PM
2010 Session
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Higher Education
Classified ratio preserved by House
PSE's signature issue, improving the classified employee funding ratio, was championed not only by the House budget today but the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the League of Education Voters, and the Washington Education Association. After seeing the Senate cut the classified employee ratio back to its 1977 levels, we were pleased to see the House budget come out 2 hours later and preserve the 58.75 to one ratio PSE has fought so hard for over the last several years.
Now we need to make sure that when the final negotiations conclude that the House stands firm and supports 58.75 : 1.
Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/24/2010 9:52:00 PM
2010 Session
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Budget & Taxes
Other K 12 financial improvements in House budget
If you have looked at some of the previous spreadsheets detailing the positives and negatives of either the House or Senate budget, it is hard not to notice that the House followed through on a couple of very important subjects for us.
Levy Equalization
The House not only fully funded levy equalization, it also included funding for the additional 2% levy equalization increase if
SHB 2893 is passed.
Quality Education Council (QEC) Recommendations
In order to improve the funding for school transportation and the funding formulas, the State needs to provide seed money to develop the infrastructure so these new formulas can start up September 1, 2011. The House provided the necessary funds ($2.5 million) to get both of these new formulas up and running. The Senate only provided funding for the funding formulas.
Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/24/2010 1:02:00 AM
2010 Session
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Basic Ed Finance Reform
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Education Reform
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Pupil transportation
House budget significantly better than Senate budget
The House clearly values education in Washington state by not only putting together good education policies but also putting money behind their policies. For instance, Higher education cuts total $40.7 million but the Senate cuts $69.4 million. In K 12 the cuts in the House are $113 million but in the Senate they are $225 million.
Keep in mind that in both of these budgets, what is described as cuts are really net cuts. In other words, within each of the areas, there were increases in funding that when added to the cuts ended up in the amounts above. For instance, cuts in the Senate budget for higher education were actually $90 million but were offset by $28 million in community and technical college retraining fund increases. In K 12, the Senate cut $225 million with no increases.
In the House budget, they cut K 12 $151 million but then added in $37 million.
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Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/23/2010 8:41:00 PM
2010 Session
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Budget & Taxes
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Higher Education
19 days left status report
Legislators are taking a slight break from their legislative duties to go back home and check in with constituents. When they return on Monday, there will be only 17 days left in the session scheduled to adjourn on March 11. At this stage of the session, it is hard to believe they will put everything together so they can finish on time, but it's my guess they will.
PSE's legislative agenda is progressing nicely with one exception: whether the ratio improvements we have made over the last several years will continue.
PSE BillsFirst the part of our agenda that is going well; PSE's bills! Our higher education bill,
E2SHB 1560 is in the Senate now and will be heard on Monday. There appears to be good support for the bill. However, a couple of friendly amendments are being considered; however, they will be dropped if they end up causing problems.
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Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/20/2010 1:04:00 PM
2010 Session
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Budget & Taxes
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Education Reform
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Higher Education
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Levy
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Partial Service Retirement Credit
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Pupil transportation
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School Crosswalk Safety
Familiar face in Olympia
PSE Life Member Tony Massa was seen roaming the halls of the Capitol on Wednesday. The former state Board member was lobbying lawmakers on public health issues.
Since leaving his maintenance job with the Othello School District a few years ago, Massa went to work for the City of Moses Lake, got elected to the Warden City Council, and currently also serves as the chair of the Grant County
Board of Health.
Tony has always had legislative issues in his blood and it was good to see him putting his PSE legislative experience to work for residents of Central Washington.
Posted By: Rick Chisa on 2/17/2010 6:27:00 PM
Et Cetera
Gregoire first to propose new revenue
Gov. Gregoire exhibited strong leadership today as she proposed generating $605 million in new state revenue. Her specific revenue package will help to avoid deeper budget cuts in education, health care, and other critical services in the midst of a $28 billion budget crisis.
PSE is pushing for a significant revenue increase this year to balance the state budget, preserve quality education services, and prevent further layoffs in K-12 and higher education.
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Posted By: Rick Chisa on 2/17/2010 6:19:00 PM
2010 Session
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Budget & Taxes
Increased ability for K 12 and higher ed to share sick leave
Yesterday, the Senate approved on a vote of 45-0
ESB 6724, a measure that allows K 12 employees to share sick leave with state agencies and higher education institutions if their different employers agree to do it. This bill was a result of a situation which involved a K 12 teacher who wanted to share her sick leave with her sick sister who was a higher education employee who had run out of her sick leave. Unfortunately, they were not allowed to do this because the law only allows K 12 employees to share sick leave with employees in their school district.
A secondary benefit of this bill is to allow employees to share sick leave to a maximum of 261 days if the employee receiving the shared leave has worked less than 10 years, 522 days if less than 20 years, and 783 days if 20 or more years of service.
Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/16/2010 9:07:00 PM
2010 Session
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Et Cetera
House weighs in on safe crosswalks
The House voted 92-0 to approve
SHB 2739, PSE's bill to provide safer school crosswalks. The bill now heads to the Senate Transportation committee for their approval.
Take a moment to watch the House discussion of the bill. Representative Ed Orcutt, a strong debater for House Republicans, provides a strong testimonial for why this bill is necessary. It was a very nice surprise to me, and will be to you as well!
Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/15/2010 8:11:00 PM
2010 Session
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School Crosswalk Safety
House passes levy bills
This afternoon, in fact they just finished a lengthy debate of the two levy bills:
SHB 2893 and
2SHB 2670. PSE supports both bills but one of them is much more beneficial than the other. 2893 temporarily increases the levy lid 4%, temporarily increases levy equalization, and allows districts to include in their levy base funding for 728, 732 and K 4 enhancement whether they receive the funding or not (this last feature is what I call the "phantom revenue" levy benefit.) On the other hand, 2670 only provides for "phantom revenue".
2893 passed 55 - 41. The close vote was a result of strong concerns from legislators whose school districts oppose raising the levy lid 4%. Their concern was overcome by the fact that the 2% levy equalization increase will benefit those districts whether they try to get the additional levy authority or not.
2670 passed 93-3. Since this bill only covers the "phantom revenue", it didn't attract any opposition worth noting.
Posted By: Doug Nelson on 2/13/2010 6:21:00 PM
2010 Session
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Levy