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New Newsletter Available
I emailed out a newsletter today. I’m attaching a link to the PDF version of it – this is somewhat easier to print out and read if you’re a print person. 2009-12-15 Newsletter I expect to produce much more regular newsletters now that we are approaching the session. Please let me know if there is…
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Local School Levies
School districts are allowed to raise local levies to fund things that are not “basic education.” The state limits the amount they can raise to a percentage of the total they receive in state and federal funding. This is so that districts like Bellevue don’t raise twice as much as districts like Yakima. The standard…
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Race To The Top Funding
The Obama administration under Education Secretary Arne Duncan has made $4.35 billion available to districts that demonstrate they are making progress in four areas: Standards and Assessments Data Systems to Support Instruction Great Teachers and Leaders Turning Around Struggling Schools We have real work to do in order to have even a remote chance of…
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Education Funding in 2010
This will be a difficult year for short-term funding of education in Washington, and in almost all of the other states. In 2009 we cut everything that moved in the budget, but made the smallest cuts in the K-12 budget. I expect this to be true in 2010 as well, and will work hard to…
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Budget Stalemate in Albany Puts Strain on New York State – NYTimes.com
It’s worth reading this article in today’s NY Times about how dysfunctional the NY legislature is in dealing with their budget problem. We will have a significant problem this year and I hope we won’t display the same inability to work together to resolve the problem. Budget Stalemate in Albany Puts Strain on New York…
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Another Bizarre Supreme Court Decision
Today the WA State Supreme Court issued a decision in the Federal Way school district case. Federal Way sued the state complaining that our distribution of funds did not meet the constitution’s requirement for a “general and uniform” way of funding schools. In specific, the district complained that since allocations to school districts for teacher…
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New Tax Foundation Study – Where do states spend their money?
I find the research this organization does fascinating, which probably says more about me than them, but there it is. The Tax Foundation is the organization that brings you “Tax Freedom Day.” I agree with them on some of their principles about well-designed tax systems, but they have a “less is more” strategy to government…
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Revenue Collections – October
Every month we get a report on the amount of tax revenue collected over the previous month. We all put it in our teacups and swirl it around hoping to see some wisdom in it, but are usually denied any new wisdom. Compared to our prediction we are down about $20 million for the month,…
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2009 Session Notes – Tax Policy
(I orginally posted this on a different blog in April 2009. I am consolidating into a single presence and am re-posting here. ) A number of key tax policy bills were passed this year. These are interesting to me because I chair the Finance committee and am responsible for making sure the system works. I…
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Changes to Sales Tax Resale Certificates (SB 6173)
The Senate budget assumed a change in how sales tax resale certificates worked. As the bill implementing this idea came over from the Senate it made substantial changes to how resale certificates work for retailers and wholesalers (which was fine) but also made a change I found punitive to how resale certificates worked for contractors…