This Week in Olympia

Session is (NOT) over: sine die

According to Merriam-Webster, sine die means: “Without any future date being designated (as for resumption).” Thus, when the Legislature wrapped up business on Thursday, they adjourned, and the Governor immediately called them back into a Special Session to finish the budget

It was just nine weeks ago when we shared with you that most lawmakers were lowballing expectations. Short sessions are typically used for technical fixes and not much else. And yet, they still needed to go to overtime to complete a budget.  

They are no-show on the budget, but did pass a charters bill.

Lawmakers will tell you that the charters bill is just a technical fix. Let’s take a look at all the effort that went into that “fix.” As even The Seattle Times reports, supporters like the Gates Foundation have funneled millions of dollars into the fight to keep charter schools open. Ads on TV and radio, mailers to homes and a full court press in Olympia created a pressure to pass a bill that even attorneys in the House and Senate question as to its constitutionality.

We still oppose charter legislation, when the Legislature is being held in contempt of court for violating the constitutional rights of more than a million of our Washington public school students.

Their constitutionality is something we are looking into it. Stay tuned for information about next steps.

In budget news . . .

There is not budget compromise yet. The budgets from two sides represent two different visions and priorities. The House is willing to tap reserves and close a handful of tax loopholes in order to begin to address educator salaries and the teacher shortage, as well as invest in critical services for mental health, homeless, and wildfires. The Senate has refused to tap into rainy day funds, will not consider tax loopholes and is placing strong importance on the four-year balanced budget statute, which allows for very limited adjustments to the current biennium’s planned expenditures and requires some major reductions including pension savings from a LEOFF 1 / TRS 1 merger

Here’s an update on other bills we were following the last few weeks of the session.

On the plus side – the House and Senate did find a small slice of common ground to begin addressing the teacher shortage, or at least the substitute shortage. They approved 2ESSB 6455, which allows 2008 early retirees to return as substitutes for 867 hours in a year. The bill maintains current certification requirements, which we fought for instead of having lower standards for some teachers from out of state. And, it provides additional scholarships and conditional loans for ed majors who stay and teach in Washington, among other things. It also contains a section that allows K-12 ESP to get tuition waivers for classes at community colleges and 4-year public institutions.

We fought off a bad bill that would have required paraeducators to be certificated, but which provided no funding for the process or professional development to get there.

SB 6668, a last-minute grab by Senate Republicans to merge pension LEOFF Plan 1 and TERS Plan 1 fund revenues was ditched because too many people agreed that a change of this significance needed to work its way through the committee process. WEA agreed with that.