Operating budget summaries
Posted on 31. Mar, 2009 by admin.
The Senate and House have both released their 2009-2011 operating budget proposals. Now, budget writers from each chamber will negotiate and compromise in order to pass one budget before they adjourn on April 26.
The operating budget summary proposals are now available online:
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Budget cuts would devastate education
Posted on 31. Mar, 2009 by George.
Washington’s schools, like families, have been tightening their budgets, while doing everything they can to ensure kids continue to grow and thrive.
This week, the Senate and House released their 2009-2011 budget proposals, which close a $9 billion shortfall with cuts and federal stimulus dollars. Although legislators prioritized children and education, both budgets would cut early learning, public schools and higher education by more than $1.3 billion.
The Senate and House make tough choices in their education budgets. Here’s our overall view of how the budgets would impact the future of our state’s children, schools and colleges.
Early Learning
Access to high quality early learning is the key to dramatically improving outcomes for young children and families. We appreciate that the Senate and House prioritized and protected early learning in their budgets. Despite modest cuts, both budgets would largely maintain access to preschool programs for children from low-income families through our state’s Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) by preventing 1,000 cuts to enrollment slots. Although, we prefer budget writers had make cuts elsewhere and fully funded this essential program.
K-12 Public Education
Although public education is the state’s paramount duty, the budget only protects a narrow, legalistic definition of “basic education.” Education programs that are essential, but are not technically part of basic education, have either been eliminated or deeply cut such as Initiative 728, levy equalization and funding to lower K-4 class sizes. The loss of I-728 alone could mean between 3,000 and 5,000 teachers would lose their jobs.
If we had a robust definition of basic education, children would not be faced with the prospect of losing their new teacher and not getting the help that they need to be successful in school and life.
We applaud the House budget for including funding to implement education reform legislation. We are concerned that the Senate relied heavily on federal stimulus dollars, which are one-time funds, to pay for basic education.
Higher Education
Our children are counting on being able to afford and enroll at one of our state’s colleges or universities to learn the skills necessary to earn a living wage. Unfortunately, both budgets make devastating cuts to our state’s higher education system. Up to 10,000 students may be denied access under the Senate budget. The House attempts to maintain current enrollments by implementing greater tuition hikes and deeper cuts in faculty and courses.
Click here to view the Senate and House operating budget summaries.
Help ensure a bright future for children in our state
The education budget represents our investment in our children’s future. We have a responsibility to our children to take care of them first because they are counting on us to help them achieve their dreams in life. Unfortunately, the proposed cuts will mean the future prospects of children across Washington State will be dimmed.
We have the ability to break this cycle of cutting school budgets during downturns and filling in the holes when our economy improves by taking bold action now. Now is the time to redefine basic education and adopt systemic reforms and accountability measures and tie them to a responsible implementation schedule. If we do so, we will be able to hold our state lawmakers and ourselves accountable for providing our children the kind of education they need to succeed in good economic times and in bad times. We would also better position Washington State to receive federal stimulus dollars and other funds tied to President Obama’s call for innovation in our public schools.
You can take action to make a difference for children and education by:
- Urging your legislators to support revising the definition of basic education to include what our children need to succeed in school, college, job training and the workforce.
We welcome your feedback and suggestions.
George Scarola
Legislative Director
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House unveils budget
Posted on 31. Mar, 2009 by admin.
This morning, House budget writers unveiled their 2009-2011 operating budget proposal at a press conference. To provide a sense of how much the economy has worsened since December, House members said they had to cut $1.60 for every dollar the governor cut.
Like the Senate, the House relied on $3 billion in federal stimulus dollars to provide a “cushion” to prevent deeper cuts to critical state programs and services.
In the education budget, the House, like the Senate, took basic education off the table immediately and looked for cuts elsewhere. The House chose to make deeper cuts in higher education than the Senate. This would allow the House budget to keep levy equalization (LEA) funding largely intact and fund 50 percent of I-728 (the Senate cut LEA by 75 percent and I-728 by 93 percent).
Unfortunately, the deeper cuts in higher education mean the House budget assumes a 10 percent tuition increase at the 4-year universities and a 7 percent increase at the community and technical colleges. The House budget would increase financial aid to offset the rise in tuition for eligible students at or below 70 percent of the state median family income. However, they would freeze state need grant and work study awards for students attending private colleges at 2009 levels.
The House also built more flexibility into their budget by giving local schools and colleges the ability to decide how to make the cuts.
Click here to view the House budget documents.
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Education news of the day
Posted on 31. Mar, 2009 by admin.
Ouch! Deep cuts in K-12 education
Who’s #1? Editorial: Slimmed down, the state must put education first
Advance to GO: WASL rules relaxed for math students
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Senate Budget: The hard numbers
Posted on 30. Mar, 2009 by admin.
The overall proposed state spending in K-12 for the 2009-2011 biennium is $13.5 billion. The Senate proposed $1.7 billion in cuts to the overall K-12 budget, about an 11% decrease. These cuts are offset by $830 million of federal stimulus funds, which reduce the cuts to $827 million, a 5.5% decrease.
Most of the cuts ($1.4 billion) come out of I-732, I-728 and levy equalization. The Senate spared or minimized cuts in programs related to basic education, differentiated course offerings and dropout prevention.
Reductions
The Senate proposed significant reductions in I-728 and levy equalization spending.
- I-728: A proposed $827 million cut (91%), roughly 5,700 teachers. Reduces I-728 funding to $31 per student.
- Levy Equalization: A proposed $285 million cut, a reduction of 58% for FY 2010 and 2011, including $106 million of federal stimulus funds.
- Learning Improvement Day: A proposed $30 million cut, a reduction of one learning improvement day.
Suspended/Eliminated
The Senate proposed other savings in the suspension or elimination of funds and programs.
- I-732: $358 million suspended.
- The Senate proposed the suspension or elimination of some lower-priority programs, including multi-year pilot, specialized and grant programs. These proposed reductions include:
- Math and science professional development: $53.2 million, eliminated
- Library Allocation: $8 million, eliminated
- K-4 staffing ratio enhancement: $297 million, eliminated
- Building Bridges (drop-out prevention): $5 million, eliminated
Maintained
The Senate maintained funding for certain grant and technical assistance programs in line with differentiated course offerings and dropout prevention.
- All-day K for lowest income schools: $81 million
- Navigation 101: $6.4 million
- Career and technical education in middle and high schools: $7.8 million
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Senate releases budget proposal
Posted on 30. Mar, 2009 by admin.
The Senate Democratic Caucus operating budget writers just wrapped up their press conference in Olympia. The senators were not shy about the many painful decisions that were made in writing their budget.
Here’s a rundown of what they talked about relating to public education in their proposed budget:
- K-12 education would be cut by $877 million.
- I-728 and I-732 would largely be suspended. I-728 would be reduced by 93 percent.
- The Federal stimulus provided $410 million in critical funding to backfill cuts in the K-12 budget.
- Budget writers tried to clean up some of the uneven funding that has occurred between school districts.
- Higher education received substantial cuts on the order of $513 million. Tuition would rise by 7 percent at the 4-year universities and 5 percent at the community and technical colleges.
- The state need grant would receive an additional $45 million to offset the tuition increases.
- Education was the last place budget writers looked for cuts. However, each school district would still receive between a 2.5 and 3 percent cut in their budget.
This budget, if enacted, would have a very real negative impact to children and schools. We will detail some of these impacts in a blog post later today.
To view a summary of the budget and the full document, click here.
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Help us present 10,000 signatures to the governor
Posted on 30. Mar, 2009 by admin.
More than 5,400 parents, educators and students have signed the Washington Kids Can’t Wait petition. We need your help to present the petition to Gov. Chris Gregoire with 10,000 signatures.
Please ask two people to sign the Washington Kids Can’t Wait Petition to help us pass 10,000 signatures by Friday, April 3rd.
And, tell them to take a moment to ADD A COMMENT when they sign about why this is important-our voice matters!
Reaching our goal will send a loud and clear message that:
- We want our lawmakers to protect funding for Washington’s children and schools; and
- We want our lawmakers to redefine basic education to pay for what our children need to succeed in college, job training, work and life.
Next week, state lawmakers will release a budget proposal that will make cuts in our public education system in order to close a historic budget shortfall. Kids in our public schools will feel the real impacts of these cuts.
Our lawmakers need to know that we are paying attention and will hold them responsible for investing in our children’s future.
Please ask two of your family, friends and colleagues to sign the Washington Kids Can’t Wait Petition so we can reach our goal of 10,000 signatures by Friday, April 3rd.
Thank you for supporting children and schools!
Lisa Layera Brunkan and Susan McBurney, Fund Our Future Washington
Kelly Munn, League of Education Voters
Shannon Campion, Stand for Children
Laura Bay, Washington State PTA
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Education news of the day
Posted on 30. Mar, 2009 by admin.
B-b-budget: State Senate, House to unveil plans this week in face of projected deficit of nearly $9 billion
If not now, when? Get serious about fixing state education funding
Helping hand: New incentive for college
Voc-ed revival: Skills center adds credits, classes
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Senate budget release set for Monday
Posted on 27. Mar, 2009 by admin.
It’s official! The Washington State Senate Democrats will release their proposed operating budget for 2009-2011 at a news briefing Monday at 10:30 AM in Senate Hearing Room 1. The public will be given an opportunity to voice their support or opposition to the budget proposal at 3:30 PM in Senate Hearing Rm 4 that afternoon.
However, the public hearing for the early learning, K-12 and higher education portion of the budget will be held on Tuesday at 1:30 PM in Senate Hearing Room 4.
The House is expected to release their budget proposal on Tuesday.
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Response to Gov. Gregoire’s letter on the education reform bills
Posted on 26. Mar, 2009 by admin.
Response to Gov. Gregoire’s letter on the education reform bills, HB 2261 and SB 6048.
We applaud Gov. Gregoire for supporting changes that will make school budgets more transparent and for strengthening the high school diploma by requiring 24 credits to graduate.
We are disappointed that the governor did not include a timeline for reform and accountability measures that would position Washington State to receive federal stimulus dollars and other funds tied to President Obama’s call for innovation in our public schools.
We believe the governor is missing the opportunity to make systemic reforms that will help every child succeed in school, such as including early learning in basic education–the single best investment we can make to reduce the achievement gap and improve overall student achievement.
We support a comprehensive re-definition of basic education, otherwise we risk continuing this endless cycle of cutting school budgets during downturns and filling in the holes when our economy improves. Our best hope to protect our children’s future is to hold our state lawmakers accountable to providing what our children need to pursue their dreams after high school.
Lisa Macfarlane
League of Education Voters
