"Pupil transportation" Posts
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
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
School bus advertising to raise revenue for schools
It is almost comical to think that the legislature is so desperate to raise revenue that they are seriously considering allowing advertising on school busses. Never mind that it doesn't really raise that much money (estimated to raise anywhere from $175,000 - $525,000 between all 295 school districts). At this morning's Senate Early Learning and K 12 committee, the committee in a disjointed vote, approved the bill,
SB 6466, with some amendments. Hard to tell what they finished with because it was somewhat messy as some Senators spoke against the amendments and the bill, but ended up voting for the bill after the amendments failed. The vote should have been 4-4 but 2 Senators voted for it just to get it out of committee.
PSE's position is the same as it was years ago when this issue was raised. We don't feel that a school bus should be used as an advertisement for anything other than safe transportation of students. We are joined in this effort by the Washington Association of Pupil Transportation, WSSDA, WASA, the Principals association, and others. The funny thing is, no school district is requesting the option to advertise. We have yet to figure out where this is coming from but we will keep digging to find out.
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Posted By: Doug Nelson on 1/27/2010 9:36:00 PM
2010 Session
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Pupil transportation