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In Thursday’s Update we focused on budget issues and also bill action
in the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee — so we
neglected to mention the full Senate’s action on SB 6450. Initiative
900, authorized by the voters a few years ago, requires that state and
local governments (including school districts) undergo performance
audits conducted by the State Auditor (these are in addition to
current financial compliance audits). I-900 included a funding source
to ensure the State Auditor could carry out the required audits. The
Initiative, however, did not include any kind of funding for those
local governments which must be audited. SB 6450 would require that
school districts and Educational Service Districts be reimbursed for
the costs they incur to gather or assemble the information requested
by the performance audit team. SB 6450 had languished in the Senate
Rules Committee and was technically dead because it was not acted upon
before the house of origin cut-off; however, because it has budget
impacts it was declared “necessary to implement the budget” and was
adopted by the full Senate yesterday. It now moves to the House for
its potential action.
Because of the flurry of activity in committees this week — and the
focus on budget issues — we have not provided full information on
bills that have been adopted by the House Education Committee.
(Yesterday, we included a series of bills acted upon by the Senate
Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee.) Listed below is a list
of many of the bills that were passed out of the House Education
Committee this week — please note that this list is fairly
comprehensive, but may not be complete.
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SB 6183 - Providing a
process for the dissolution of first-class school directors'
districts.
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SB 6588 - Authorizing the
transfer of accumulated leave between the common school and higher
education systems.
-
SSB 6726 - Granting the
professional educator standards board ongoing authority to establish
professional-level certification assessments and performance
standards.
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SSB 6879 - Regarding the
joint task force on basic education finance.
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SB 6740 - Regarding the
provision of teacher certification services.
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ESSB 6380 - Enhancing school
library programs.
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SB 6369 - Regarding the
Washington community learning center program.
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SSB 6453 - Clarifying the
timeline for release of education records to the department of
social and health services.
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SB 6313 - Recognizing
disability history in the public education system.
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SSB 6426 - Enacting the
Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children.
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SSB 6743 - Regarding
training and guidelines for teachers of students with autism.
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2SSB 6377 - Regarding
secondary career and technical education.
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E2SSB 6673 - Creating
learning opportunities.
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2ESSB 5100 - Regarding
health insurance information for students.
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ESSB 5714 - Creating a pilot
program of Spanish and Chinese language instruction.
-
SB 6534 - Regarding the
revision of mathematics standards.
The House Appropriations Committee will hold its traditional marathon
meeting tomorrow in an attempt to move out priority bills before the
next cut-off; all bills must be out of their opposite house fiscal
committee by Monday, March 3, in order to remain alive (as evidenced
above, remember that budget bills and budget-implementing bills are
still exempt from these cut-off deadlines). The Senate Ways and Means
Committee will hold its last pre-cut-off meeting on Monday.
Finally, with both
the House and the Senate adopting its respective versions of a 2008
Supplemental Operating Budget, budget-writers will begin negotiating a
final, compromise budget in earnest. Unfortunately, most of that
action will be behind closed doors, so it is unclear at this point how
often negotiators will meet, how far apart they really are on a final
budget and how long a compromise agreement will take. It is assumed,
however, that work will be completed by the Legislature’s scheduled
adjournment on March 13. |
