|
Both the House and Senate continue with lengthy floor
sessions — intermingled with often-lengthy caucus
meetings to review and debate priority bills and
amendments to those bills. Last night, the Senate’s
floor session continued late into the night as they
moved tax-related legislation and a few education
measures. We reported yesterday on the Senate’s adoption
of
SB 6843 to temporarily lift Initiative 960’s
limitations on tax and fee increases. Following a
lengthy (and somewhat nasty) debate, the bill passed the
body with a vote of 26-23. Shortly after the bill was
adopted, however, Senate Leadership notified their
colleagues and the press corps that SB 6843 will not do
exactly what they intended, so another bill would have
to be moved. Late last night,
SB 6130, a “title only” bill introduced last
session, was moved to the floor and amended to
temporarily put I-960’s provisions on hold. The déjà vu
debate was again intense, but only lasted an
hour-and-half last night. SB 6130 was adopted with a
vote of 26-22 and now moves to the House for action. The
House Finance Committee has already scheduled the bill
for a public hearing this Saturday, Feb. 13. It is
anticipated the bill will move quickly through the
House, so budget-writers in the House and Senate can
continue to work on a tax package. Once a tax package is
put together, budget-writers can focus on the spending
side of the equation and craft a 2010 Supplemental
Operating Budget.
Speaking of taxes, late last week, Rep. Ross Hunter,
Chair of the House Finance Committee introduced
HB 3176 to raise revenue. Hunter’s revenue package
would raise between $250 and $300 million. While the
bill doesn’t specifically raise taxes — the package
fixes tax loopholes and eliminates a series of tax
exemptions — it does raise revenue, and is, therefore,
subject to the provisions of I-960. HB 3176 will be
heard alongside SB 6130 in the House Finance Committee
this Saturday.
Last night, the full Senate adopted three
education-related bills of interest: SB 6604, SB 6629
and SB 6643.
-
SB 6604 would provide school districts with
additional flexibility by repealing, suspending or
amending a series of unfunded mandates. Included in
this bill is language that would change the
membership structure of the Washington State School
Directors’ Association by amending current law
provisions which provide for automatic membership in
WSSDA. Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe and Sen. Mary
Margaret Haugen introduced an amendment to strip
this language from the bill; however, the amendment
was defeated — the language remains. As he has in
previous sessions, Sen. Rodney Tom spearheaded the
efforts to alter WSSDA’s membership structure,
arguing that school districts in his area are not
adequately represented by the Association. The bill
now moves to the House for its action.
-
SB 6629 would convene a working group to make
recommendations defining a basic education program
for highly capable students. The bill now moves to
the House for its action.
-
SB 6643 would allow second-class school
districts to submit a condensed compliance report to
OSPI, rather than submit individual compliance
reports. The adopted bill now moves to the House.
On Thursday, the Senate continued to adopt
education-related bills and adopted the following: SB
6696 and SB 6760.
-
SB 6696 would make changes to educator
preparation, educator evaluation and tenure, and
establish a new education accountability system.
This is the “omnibus” bill from the governor, OSPI
and the State Board intended to implement education
reforms to enhance Washington’s application for
federal Race To The Top funds. A striking amendment
(eliminating the entire bill’s language and
inserting new language) was introduced to clean up
the bill’s language. The amendment, which provides
additional clarity to the previous language, was
adopted by the full Senate. The amended bill then
was passed to the House with a vote of 41-5.
-
SB 6760 would replace the current education
funding formulas with the new prototypical school
funding formulas using the baseline values as
determined by the Funding Formula Technical Working
Group. The bill includes some technical
“refinements” to the Working Group’s recommendation,
but no enhanced funding levels (unlike previous
versions of the bill). SB 6760 was adopted with no
dissenting votes and awaits action in the House.
|
