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On Wednesday afternoon, the Senate Ways and Means Committee held an
executive session and took action on its versions of the 2008
Supplemental Operating and Capital Constructions Budgets. (For
specific details of the Senate’s operating budget for K-12 education,
please see our Feb. 26 Update. WSSDA’s next issue of Impact also will
provide a comprehensive review the Senate’s plan.) Both budgets were
adopted by the Committee with only a few minor amendments (most of
them technical) and little discussion. The budgets now move to the
full Senate for its action. While we have not heard when the full
Senate plans to act on the budgets, most legislative observers presume
they will adopt the budgets by the end of this week. With 15 days left
in this 2008 Regular Legislative Session, much of the action will move
behind-the-scenes as budget-writers in the House and Senate begin to
negotiate compromise budgets (Operating, Capital and Transportation)
for the full Legislature’s action.
Legislative committees continue to meet — most with packed agendas —
as legislators attempt to move opposite house bills from policy
committees prior to this Friday’s (Feb. 29) cut-off date. Bills that
fail to be adopted by their opposite house policy committees by
Friday’s deadline will be technically dead for this session. Of
course, budget bills and those bills considered “necessary to
implement the budget” remain exempt from these cut-off dates.
This afternoon, the House State Government and Tribal Affairs
Committee held a public hearing on SB 5271. SB 5271 is the bill
which would eliminate the March and May special election dates
currently available to school districts and other local governments.
The bill that was heard today is the amended bill that was adopted by
the Senate, with language that was negotiated and agreed to by WSSDA,
WASA and the County Auditor’s Association. In addition to eliminating
the two election dates, the linkage between special election dates and
the Presidential Preference Primary would be broken in the amended
bill. This is a major concession by the County Auditors and would be a
major win for schools.
The Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee held a public
hearing this morning — and will meet again later this evening. They
reviewed several bills of interest, including HB 2516, HB
1806 and HB 2635. HB 2516 would remove the current
requirement (and unfunded mandate) that school districts screen
students for scoliosis. HB 1806 also deals with unfunded mandates;
however, the bill would add another unfunded mandate to the current
laundry list of school district requirements. HB 1806 would require
school districts to adopt a policy and implement an Integrated Pest
Management (IPM) program. Also included in the bill is the requirement
that school districts be certified by a specific organization (IPM
STAR) — a clear unfunded mandate to schools. HB 2635 would clarify the
process to resolve school district boundary disputes and make several
technical changes to assist school districts in dealing with boundary
changes. The original bill concerned many school directors because a
local school board’s authority to make decisions on behalf of their
constituents would have been hindered. As amended and adopted by the
House, HB 2635 simply clarifies the process, addressing school
directors’ concerns.
On Friday, we will
provide a more comprehensive list of the many bills that have been
heard and/or acted upon this week. |
