Morning Fizz
"I Don't Intend to be a Troublemaker, but..." A Special Morning Fizz Re: Saturday's Budget Vote and Education Funding
Only a few legislators voted against the budget cuts that were approved during the special session in Olympia on Saturday. Among them, Olympia's staunchest education advocates.
Having already cut $5 billion from the 2009-11 budget over the last two legislative sessions, the legislature approved an additional $585 million fix during a one-day special session on Saturday to deal with the $1.1 billion shortfall for the remaining six months of the budget cycle. They made about $500 million in total direct cuts to human services, education funding, environmental protections, and government operations and approved nearly $100 million in fund transfers and tax compliance efforts.
The legislature plans to approve another $541 million fix when they convene in January. (They also have to deal with a $5.5 billion shortfall for the 2011-13 budget, which begins in July.)
The cuts they made on Saturday are harsh. They include: $27.7 million from the Basic Health Plan for low-income people, $39 million taken from class-size reduction efforts, $21 million from child and family services, $12.26 million in assistance to the disabled poor, and $17 million in environmental protection programs. (A Seattle Times report on Saturday's vote is here.)
For the gruesome details—cuts to rural health clinics, cuts to children's health care, cuts to worker retraining programs, cuts to dental care for the poor, cuts to monitoring sex offenders, and getting rid of $856,000 in temporary assistance to poor families with kids—check out the budget fine print here.
Not many legislators voted against the budget—just six in the house in an 86-6 vote and nine in the senate in a 30-9 vote.
But the 'nay' votes are notable .
Sure, three of the 'no' votes on the house side were cast by lame-duck reps, including ultra-liberal Rep. Geoff Simpson (D-47, Covington, Black Diamond) and dissident lefty Rep. Brendan Williams (D-22, Olympia)—who announced over a year ago he was quitting the legislature in disgust. (After Saturday's vote, Williams scoffed, "It seems clear the direction state politics will go may erase the distinction between Democrats and Republicans.") And likely thumbing her nose at her conservative district, which tossed her out in November, the third good-riddance vote came from moderate Rep. Dawn Morrell (D-25, Puyallup).
However, the other three 'nays' were cast by Republican Reps. Glenn Anderson (R-5, North Bend, Issaquah, Snoqualmie) and Mike Hope (R-44, Southwest Snohomish), and Democrat Christine Rolfes (D-23, Bainbridge, Bremerton, Poulsbo).
What do these two Republicans and one Democrat have in common? They are house leaders on education. "Having just come out of a campaign where we all said funding education was the top priority," Rolfes told PubliCola this weekend after the vote, "I couldn't vote for this because of how disruptive it is to school funding."
Certainly, the K-12 cuts were devastating—the aforementioned $39 million cut to class-size reduction efforts, plus $10.7 million in specific program cuts, including eliminating early learning funding, eliminating the dropout prevention program, eliminating the early intervention program for special needs students, and killing a series of education reform efforts such as suspending funding for developing diagnostic assessments. But are the education cuts any worse than than the human services cuts? Comparing the worth of classroom funding to senior care programs, for example, seems like a losing exercise.
However, there is something more troubling about the K-12 cuts than the other cuts. As Rolfes pointed out in an email to her colleagues after her 'nay' vote on Saturday—"I don’t intend to be a troublemaker, but the scope of the cuts to the schools that we just approved is bigger than any of us were led to believe."
By way of explanation, Rolfes attached a separate email from a house staff policy analyst who explained that while legislators were told schools had been instructed to set aside $208 million in federal money that Washington State received earlier this year to offset cuts to teacher staffing in the next budget cycle, the state superintendent's office had actually urged the schools to spend the money now. The house policy analyst warned:
This is problematic because on Saturday, the legislature—believing the federal money wasn't currently earmarked—decided to use the $208 million to backfill its general school funding budget. Whoops. That means they approved over $50 million in K-12 cuts (the $39 in class size reduction efforts plus the $10.7 million in program cuts) while potentially de-funding other programs, and, of course, negating the buffer for future teacher layoffs.
Rolfes, who told us she ultimately voted 'no' because she "just didn't know" what the ultimate impact of shifting the $208 million would be, concluded the email to her colleagues by saying:
Among the few votes against the slash-and-burn budget on the senate side—newly elected Republican senator Steve Litzow (R-41, Bellevue, Issaquah, Mercer Island, Renton), a rookie hopeful to education activists. (Litzow took his seat immediately in November because he beat incumbent Sen. Randy Gordon, who was serving out an appointment.)
Another education advocate, state Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-36, Ballard, Queen Anne), who voted for the budget because "the train had left the station" but acknowledged that Rolfes "made the right call," posted on his blog this weekend after the budget vote about education funding, taking on a taboo subject—the sacrosanct levy equalization fund.
The levy equalization fund subsidizes poorer, rural school districts with money from wealthier districts like Seattle. Rep. Carlyle wrote:
Having already cut $5 billion from the 2009-11 budget over the last two legislative sessions, the legislature approved an additional $585 million fix during a one-day special session on Saturday to deal with the $1.1 billion shortfall for the remaining six months of the budget cycle. They made about $500 million in total direct cuts to human services, education funding, environmental protections, and government operations and approved nearly $100 million in fund transfers and tax compliance efforts.
The legislature plans to approve another $541 million fix when they convene in January. (They also have to deal with a $5.5 billion shortfall for the 2011-13 budget, which begins in July.)
The cuts they made on Saturday are harsh. They include: $27.7 million from the Basic Health Plan for low-income people, $39 million taken from class-size reduction efforts, $21 million from child and family services, $12.26 million in assistance to the disabled poor, and $17 million in environmental protection programs. (A Seattle Times report on Saturday's vote is here.)
For the gruesome details—cuts to rural health clinics, cuts to children's health care, cuts to worker retraining programs, cuts to dental care for the poor, cuts to monitoring sex offenders, and getting rid of $856,000 in temporary assistance to poor families with kids—check out the budget fine print here.
Not many legislators voted against the budget—just six in the house in an 86-6 vote and nine in the senate in a 30-9 vote.
But the 'nay' votes are notable .
Sure, three of the 'no' votes on the house side were cast by lame-duck reps, including ultra-liberal Rep. Geoff Simpson (D-47, Covington, Black Diamond) and dissident lefty Rep. Brendan Williams (D-22, Olympia)—who announced over a year ago he was quitting the legislature in disgust. (After Saturday's vote, Williams scoffed, "It seems clear the direction state politics will go may erase the distinction between Democrats and Republicans.") And likely thumbing her nose at her conservative district, which tossed her out in November, the third good-riddance vote came from moderate Rep. Dawn Morrell (D-25, Puyallup).
However, the other three 'nays' were cast by Republican Reps. Glenn Anderson (R-5, North Bend, Issaquah, Snoqualmie) and Mike Hope (R-44, Southwest Snohomish), and Democrat Christine Rolfes (D-23, Bainbridge, Bremerton, Poulsbo).
What do these two Republicans and one Democrat have in common? They are house leaders on education. "Having just come out of a campaign where we all said funding education was the top priority," Rolfes told PubliCola this weekend after the vote, "I couldn't vote for this because of how disruptive it is to school funding."
Certainly, the K-12 cuts were devastating—the aforementioned $39 million cut to class-size reduction efforts, plus $10.7 million in specific program cuts, including eliminating early learning funding, eliminating the dropout prevention program, eliminating the early intervention program for special needs students, and killing a series of education reform efforts such as suspending funding for developing diagnostic assessments. But are the education cuts any worse than than the human services cuts? Comparing the worth of classroom funding to senior care programs, for example, seems like a losing exercise.
However, there is something more troubling about the K-12 cuts than the other cuts. As Rolfes pointed out in an email to her colleagues after her 'nay' vote on Saturday—"I don’t intend to be a troublemaker, but the scope of the cuts to the schools that we just approved is bigger than any of us were led to believe."
By way of explanation, Rolfes attached a separate email from a house staff policy analyst who explained that while legislators were told schools had been instructed to set aside $208 million in federal money that Washington State received earlier this year to offset cuts to teacher staffing in the next budget cycle, the state superintendent's office had actually urged the schools to spend the money now. The house policy analyst warned:
Many of you had heard that OSPI communicated to districts they should be very careful about spending the education jobs money, given the financial decisions the Legislature must make in the upcoming session.
... that is incorrect. In fact ... they communicated just the opposite. The[y] advised districts to spend the money as soon as possible ... for ongoing and existing programs and activities.
This is problematic because on Saturday, the legislature—believing the federal money wasn't currently earmarked—decided to use the $208 million to backfill its general school funding budget. Whoops. That means they approved over $50 million in K-12 cuts (the $39 in class size reduction efforts plus the $10.7 million in program cuts) while potentially de-funding other programs, and, of course, negating the buffer for future teacher layoffs.
Rolfes, who told us she ultimately voted 'no' because she "just didn't know" what the ultimate impact of shifting the $208 million would be, concluded the email to her colleagues by saying:
These cuts are bigger than the schools have ever faced—I think about 4 times bigger. There is nothing to be done, at this point.
Among the few votes against the slash-and-burn budget on the senate side—newly elected Republican senator Steve Litzow (R-41, Bellevue, Issaquah, Mercer Island, Renton), a rookie hopeful to education activists. (Litzow took his seat immediately in November because he beat incumbent Sen. Randy Gordon, who was serving out an appointment.)
Another education advocate, state Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-36, Ballard, Queen Anne), who voted for the budget because "the train had left the station" but acknowledged that Rolfes "made the right call," posted on his blog this weekend after the budget vote about education funding, taking on a taboo subject—the sacrosanct levy equalization fund.
The levy equalization fund subsidizes poorer, rural school districts with money from wealthier districts like Seattle. Rep. Carlyle wrote:
My point here is not to argue for reductions in levy equalization as I’m not trying to punish students in property poor districts. My point is deeper, more philosophical and political as to argue for a courageously honest dialogue about the moral inconsistency of taking levy equalization off the table without even so much as a discussion.
My point is that levy equalization has become sacred and resides politically outside of the normal political discourse from those who claim ‘we must all sacrifice.’
The prized subsidization program for rural and property poor districts–that decry state government–was not only left untouched, it was not so much as discussed, debated or considered.
Seattle receives $0.37 cents in education spending from state government for every dollar we send to Olympia. The voters of the 36th voted against 1107, 1053, for 1098 and yet literally the first cut made against the $1.1 billion deficit is K-4 enhancement dollars that will lay off teachers in every school in my district next fall. And, in turn, many of those districts that voted for 1107, for example, are part of the 240 school districts that receive levy equalization dollars.
