Hot Dog!

According to Schmudget the recently-signed stimulus package could be used to backfill in the cuts that Governor Gregoire proposed to levy equalization and class size reduction funding. If that's even close to being the case it's a big, big sigh of relief for school districts around the state.

More from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities here.

The next big thing to watch will be the early budget forecast this coming Thursday, February 19th, where it's fully expected that the $5 billion dollar deficit Governor Gregoire prepared for is now an $8 billion dollar hole in the treasury. That'll be a big, big indicator about where things might go for the rest of the session.

You Know What's Fun? Reading the State Budget!

Happy the Budget Deer Loves Substitute House Bill 1128!

No, really! You can download the last one here; zip ahead to section 5 and you'll get to the stuff that matters most to us, regarding education funding. It's 57 pages of numbers, and I think that given the state of the budget that's where the opportunity lies. For example, take this from page 149:

Within the amounts provided in this subsection, the superintendent shall recognize the extraordinary accomplishments of four students who have demonstrated a strong understanding of the civics essential learning requirements to receive the Daniel J. Evans civic education award. The students selected for the award must demonstrate understanding through completion of at least one of the classroom-based civics assessment models developed by the superintendent of public instruction, and through leadership in the civic life of their communities. The superintendent shall select two students from eastern Washington and two students from western Washington to receive the award, and shall notify the governor and legislature of the names of the recipients.

Sounds like a nice enough program, surely, but given that we've got a $6 billion dollar hole to fill the question that we should be asking about every single thing we do is pretty simple:

Is it worth it?

I'm not sure where I first heard the phrase "Christmas tree items" to descrive those pieces that are added into a budget that pay for certain pet programs; they're hung on to the main body, like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Our education budget last time had a wide variety of those items, and they all should be run through the same filter: were they worth it?

• $1,895,000 to operate the State Board of Education
  
• $2,000,000 for operating costs for the Professional Educator Standards Board
  
• $7,558,000 to fund alternative routes to teacher certification
  
• $555,000 for litigation fees surrounding various lawsuits
  
• $600,000 to replace of the apportionment system
  
• $156,000 "to provide direct services and support to schools around an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to instruction in conservation, natural resources, sustainability, and human adaptation to the environment."
  
• $2,563,000 "for the creation of a statewide data base of longitudinal student information."
  
• $650,000 "for comprehensive cultural competence and anti-bias education programs for educators and students."
  
• $100,000 "to promote the financial literacy of students." As an aside, they're about to get a hell of a lesson on what overspending can do!
  
• $270,000 to implement a bill "regarding educational data and data systems."
  
• $228,000 for the "legislative youth advisory council."
  
• $193,000 for "children and families of incarcerated parents."
  
• $55,000 for the "Washington college bound scholarship."
  
• $49,000 "regarding providing medically and scientifically accurate sexual health education in schools."
  
• $45,000 for food allergy guidelines.
  
• $84,000 "to support a program to recognize the work of outstanding classified staff in school districts throughout the state." That's enough to pay for 2 or 3 classified employees.
  
• $194,000 "to support a full-time director of skills centers within the office of the superintendent of public instruction."
  
• $1,030,000 to pay for two studies from the NWREL about ELL and the "k-3 demonstration projects."
  
• $200,000 for a study from WSU on school bullying.
  
• $5,082,000 for a "school nursing corp" based out of the ESDs.
  
• $192,000 for the School Safety Center at OSPI.

....and that's just the first 8 pages. It adds up to $23,699,000. Not all of it is discretionary--I'm pretty sure that the state Constitution mandates we have a State Board of Education--but is there potential for them (and the PESB) to do things as leanly as possible for a couple of years? The big things out of the State Board lately have been the new accountability matrix and Core 24; let's not do those, and not spend any more money on them, and see what happens.

everybody hurts: the Gregoire Budget

Governor Gregoire has released her budget recommendations for the upcoming legislative session. Cue Michael Stipe, singing on a freeway:

Gov. Christine Gregoire released an austere state budget proposal this morning that slashes more than $3.5 billion in funding for public schools, higher education, social services and other areas to help close the biggest budget shortfall in state history.

Gregoire proposes filling the gap, projected at more than $5 billion, by making scores of cuts and using untapped pots of money, including $600 million from the state rainy-day fund.

In addition, the governor is banking that the federal government will send Washington at least $1 billion as part of an economic stimulus package.

Among the cuts proposed by Gregoire: $682 million in pay increases for state workers and teachers; $500 million in health care for children, the poor and the disabled; and $178 million in funding for Initiative I-728, which was approved by voters in 2000 to reduce class sizes in public schools.

The proposed budget also would change how state pensions are funded, and reduce contributions to the worker-retirement programs by $400 million over the next two years. No cut was too small to pursue. The governor proposes closing 13 state parks to save $5.2 million, shuttering the visitors center at the state Capitol to save $1.7 million and eliminating toll-free numbers to the state Department of Revenue to save $260,000.

The governor said the cuts were necessary, but that she "hates" the budget and expects legislators and lobbyists will as well. "There's something in there for everybody not to like."

I'd strongly recommend reading the entire recommendation [pdf] to get a sense of the uphill battle ahead.

I'll post analysis later this week.

(Oh, and it almost goes without saying that "advocacy groups" are upset.)

Added: And then there's Ryan's take.

A Program We Can't Afford: The State Funded Internship for Principals

Recently, when the Office of Financial Management released their Priorities of Government report detailing what they thought should and should not be funded in the coming legislative session, one of the lowest priority items for education spending was the state funded Education Leadership Intern Program which provides a grant for paid release days for aspiring principals and superintendents to step out of the classroom and spend time working on their internships.

To my mind, cutting the program is the right thing to do when we're looking at a $6 billion dollar budget hole. There's no evidence that I've seen that Washington State has a principals shortage; similarly, I've yet to hear of a district unable to find a superintendent. Sure, it only cost slightly more than $1.4 million dollars in the last bienium, but that's not really the point--if we're going to be looking at every program in an honest way, and if the Priorities of Government is to mean anything, then there's an awful lot more that should avoid the axe before the Internship Program.

Trick is, that hasn't stopped OSPI from posting the application for next year's grant program, even though the grant program isn't statuatory and could go away any time. The Association of Washington School Principals acknowledges this truth on their website, saying that the grant applications will be considered "null and void" should the program not be funded, but at the same time they've made it one of their legislative priorities for the coming session.

This seems like an easy cut. I kind of hate to see it go, since I got one of those grants last year, but it's the right thing to do.

A Peek at Where the Budget Could Go

This letter from the Office of Financial Management came out the week of Thanksgiving. It instructs the various state agencies on additional cuts they need to make for this fiscal year -- OSPI takes a better than $12.5 million dollar hit -- but it doesn't touch K-12. Don't read anything major into that, because a lot of the K-12 spending isn't discretionary in the same way that health care or postgraduate education is; this interview on Inside Olympia with Victor Moore, the fellow who wrote the above letter, explains why.

Damn You, Mulick!

This would be an absolute disaster for school district budget planning:

“We’ll probably be going into a lot of overtime,” Haler said. “I’ve been talking with legislators on both sides of the aisle. We don’t expect to get out until the end of June.”

End of June?(!)

Could it be that budget talks have broken down before they’ve even started?

Big problems call for a thorough discussion, but by the Gods that woud be a six month legislative session. By the middle of May I would expect the caucuses to be taking up arms and fighting each other in a running, bloody battle down Capitol Way.

Thanks for giving me one more thing to worry about, Chris Mulick of the Tri-Cities Herald.

Reading the Tea Leaves

This could be pretty important, from Forbes Magazine:

If you live in Seattle, it might be time to ask for a cost of living increase. The city has the highest inflation rate in the country.

"Seattle household income is fairly high, and that helps to maintain a high rate of inflation since higher income areas can afford price increases," says Steve Cochrane, an economist with Moody's Economy.com. "Some of it is fuel, but housing prices have also been more stable than anywhere else on the West Coast, which adds to inflation."

Normally, Seattle's 3.7% unemployment rate, well under the national average of 5.5%, would be a good thing. But a growing economy with low unemployment drives up wages and costs. The Emerald City's consumer prices are up 5.8% from this time last year, which ties for the highest inflation rate in the country with Dallas, where high energy costs for home cooling and driving are eating up incomes.

Consider that the COLA for teachers mandated by I-728 is tied to the inflation index in Seattle. Consider further how many districts struggled with COLA costs for their staff that aren't funded by the state, and that was at only 5.1%. Wrap all that up with a $2.7 billion dollar budget deficit bow, and I'd say that there's certainly going to be a movement to suspend the teacher COLA in the legislature this year.

(Hat tip to Slog for having the story first.)

Pre-K--Money in the Bank?

Over at blog neighbor Washington Policy Watch they're talking about the potential financial advantages to prekindergarten programs, quoting research done by Sarah Mead at the Early Ed Watch Blog. The take-home message is that every dollar invested in pre-K can be looked at as an investment that returns $2.88; if you spend $1,000,000,000 on pre-K, you'll save $2,880,000,000 in the long run.

If valid, it's a good case to make. The trouble with back-end saving like this is that legislators have an obligation to balance the budget that is in front of them, and even if pre-K can be considered an "investment" (which is a case that Governor Gregoire and others have been happy to make) if there's no money available to front load the program then the savings will always be theoretical.

Pre-K is absolutely worth it. Many things are. It'll be interesting to see how the Legislature grapples with these issues in the next session.