|
This week's video update on the legislative
session is now available at
youtube.com/wssda.
Friday was Day 5 of the Special Session of the 2010
Legislature and the level of public activity remains
light and budget negotiations continue to be slow. It
does appear there is some progress in budget and tax
negotiations between the House and Senate, although it
is still too early to tell if that progress will be
enough to bring the Special Session to an end soon. As
we’ve reported earlier, House and Senate budget-writers
have reached general agreement on the overall size of
the budget and the overall size of a necessary tax
package to fund that budget. Apparently, agreement is
also close on the size of an ending fund balance.
The major sticking point continues to be the source
of revenues for the tax package. The Senate continues to
press for a temporary three-tenths of a cent increase in
the state sales tax; while the House continues to oppose
that move. Positions in both houses appear to be
softening, however. Last night, legislative leaders
began discussing the possibility of a compromise by both
bodies. A “hybrid” proposal may emerge that includes a
smaller sales tax increase (perhaps 0.25 cents, rather
than a 0.3 cent increase) and a smaller menu of targeted
taxes.
This morning, the Senate put its tax package bill (SB
6143) on its Order of Consideration and is scheduled
to re-adopt the bill today, although at the time of this
writing, they had not yet taken action. It is unclear if
the intention is to adopt the original Senate-adopted
bill or an updated version; however, only one fairly
minor amendment is currently waiting “on the bar” so it
is likely they will adopt the original package and
continue negotiations with the House. UPDATE: Just
prior to posting this Update, several more amendments to
SB 6143 were added to the bar, including one presented
by a key Democrat budget-writer that will strike the
proposed three-tenths of a cent increase in the sales
tax, replacing it with a two-tenths of a cent increase.
Senate Democrat Caucus Chair Ed Murray has reported the
Caucus agreed to this lower level and the full Senate is
expected to pass the bill this evening. Is this the
compromise necessary to bring the House on-board and
move this Special Session to a close this weekend?
To be determined….
While general agreement on the three major budget
pieces to be negotiated (that is, size of the budget,
size of the tax package, and size of the ending fund
balance) has apparently been reached between the House
and Senate, the many details of the budget continue to
be negotiated as well.
WSSDA signed onto a letter with other members of the
education community and we continue to jointly meet with
legislators to remind them about the importance of four
key issues: the K-4 Class Size Enhancement; funding for
Classified Staff Ratios; funding for All-Day
Kindergarten; and the proposed enhancement of Local
Effort Assistance (or levy equalization).
The Senate proposed to eliminate the K-4 Class Size
Enhancement ($102 million), while the House proposed to
“tweak” the formula, saving about $11 million. The
Senate also proposed to reduce the current Classified
Staff Ratio funding by $15 million; the House proposal
would not make this cut. Funding for the current policy
on All-Day Kindergarten (that is, state funding for
schools with the highest 20 percent of poverty) is
maintained in both the Senate and House proposals and we
urge legislators to hold firm to that position. Local
Effort Assistance is also maintained and increased in
both the Senate and House proposals and we believe that
funding will remain, following the adoption of
HB 2893 (increasing levy lids, increasing LEA,
restoring levy bases) last week. Linked with the LEA, we
are also strongly encouraging legislators to fund the
“per pupil inflator” at four percent, as was originally
included in the underlying 2009-11 Operating Budget. The
Senate’s Supplemental Budget proposal includes a
reduction of PPI to one percent (saving about $7.2
million), while the House proposal maintains the full
four percent. The PPI is important because it is a
growth factor included in the budget to ensure levy
bases can grow to accommodate increased costs. For
example, in the last few years, the Legislature
increased PPI to assist with escalating energy costs.
The 2009-11 budget included a four percent PPI in both
the first and second year of the biennium to assist with
increasing employee health benefit costs and to assist
with projected dramatic increases in employee pension
costs. Cutting the per pupil inflator to one percent
will save the state a little over $7 million, but will
cost local school districts exponentially more.
|
