Category: Budget

Champion For Early Learning!

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I’m pleased to report that the Children’s Alliance named me a “Champion for Early Learning” this year and presented me with this nice box of stale Wheaties.

We made significant moves in early learning for low-income this year and I’m glad to be recognized for it.

  • We expanded the state’s program for low-income 3 and 5 year old kids. our goal is to have all kids below 110% of the federal poverty level have access to a high-quality program by 2018. This year we expanded the program about as quickly as we think we can and still maintain high quality. We also increased the rate we pay providers by about 10% as we were finding that providers were unable to run an effective program on what we were paying.
  • We expanded the number of slots in what we call “Working Connections Child Care” and increased the rate we pay, including a step that is only available to providers enrolled in our quality improvement program.
  • The Department of Early Learning won a federal “Race to the Top” grant and we were able to protect it from the Senate Republicans who wanted to use the money we’re using to meet the conditions of the grant for something else.

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“This Washington” saves money on Medicaid costs

Arthroscopic knee surgery: one of the treatments limited in Washington state's Health Technology Assessment program.
Arthroscopic knee surgery: one of the treatments limited in Washington state’s Health Technology Assessment program. Shutterstock

In an interesting article on the “Center for Public Integrity” website Washington State is called out as having a cost-effective way to make decisions about what medical treatments don’t actually work, and to stop paying for them. This is not without controversy, as you might expect.

In order to cut costs and put Medicare on a stronger footing, many health policy experts say the program must stop covering procedures that do little to improve patient health or are not worth the price tag. But the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that administers the program, has for the most part failed to implement such cost-cutting measures, because its authority is limited, cuts are controversial and Congress frequently interferes.

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Brown Center: “Obama’s Preschool Proposal is Not Based on Sound Research”

Obama addressing a crowd with While I’m not sure I agree with the scary headline of this post from the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, I totally agree that we should be thinking carefully about how we implement a major upgrade of our early education program for at-risk kids. (Good headlines drive more readership, hence I quote it in my title…)

You can read their conclusions here, but the following paragraph is a good summary:

When well designed and implemented third-party randomized trials of good preschool programs generate estimates of effects that are orders of magnitude smaller than those being generated using the age-cutoff regression discontinuity design, it raises questions that should motivate a careful examination of the methodology of the age-cutoff research.

You can see that I have exciting reading habits!

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The Education Budget

Ardmore Elementary - Bellevue School District
Ardmore Elementary – Bellevue School District

I’m pleased to report that we were able to add just over a billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) in new money to education funding in Washington, or about a 12% increase. This is a step towards meeting the obligation to amply provide for the education of all children residing within our borders the constitution calls for and the Supreme Court is requiring us to do in the McCleary decision. My initial proposal was for significantly more. We believe the final bill will be close to $4.5 billion, and we have 5 years to phase into a solution. This budget has 2 years in it, so 2/5 of the eventual problem would require a $1.7 billion increase. We didn’t get there, but what we did do is pretty significant. Continue reading “The Education Budget”

Education wins in final budget

2009-Smily-Headshot-medium.jpgA week has passed since the end of the second (and final) special session this year and I’ve finally put socks and shoes on and shaved. This was an exhausting exercise as the Senate Republicans figured out how they were going to make decisions. I’m pleased we were able to get it done at the end, but would have preferred to have not come so close to the deadline for shutting down most state services.

The final budget addresses most of my priorities:

  • $1 billion in new funding for K-12 education, part of our effort at addressing our constitutional requirement to amply provide for the education of all children. This is not as much as I believe the court is asking us to do, but it’s a significant step. Continue reading “Education wins in final budget”

Washington ranks 30th in total school spending per pupil in 2011

Per-Pupil expenditures 1992-2011 not adjusted for inflation
Per-Pupil expenditures 1992-2011 not adjusted for inflation

Dick Davis at the The Washington Research Council posted about new Census data recently released on school funding.

Washington ranks 30th in total school spending per pupil in 2011

A new report from the U.S. Census provides a wealth of data on public school spending. (Links to all the data can be found here.)

A look at state revenues and spending per pupil can be found in this spreadsheet, Table 11 from the report. It shows that Washington spent $9,483 per pupil, ranking the state 30th, slightly below the U.S. average of $10,560.The table also shows that Washington ranks 30th in total revenues per pupil, $11,329. And, as we noted in our comparative analysis of education funding, we rank relatively high in state spending, No. 15, and lower in local funding, No. 36. (Read entire article here...)

The census data is the raw data on school funding. Typically it’s more interesting to look at some nuanced analysis. For example, the costs of hiring professional staff (teachers) varies by state, with highly urban states having higher costs not just for teachers, but for all college-educated workers, so the same dollar buys less education. This kind of analysis will come in over time.

Dick makes a couple of interesting points that are worth thinking (and talking) about:

  1. Washington ranks high in state spending and low in local spending compared to other states.
  2. Many states are dealing with increasing costs of paying off underfunded pension systems.

Washington ranks high in state support because our constitution requires us to do so. The Supreme Court pointed this out quite painfully in the McCleary decision. Depending on local resources for basic education makes it difficult for taxpayers in low-property value areas of the state to give their children a comparable education to those in more affluent areas, a problem that plagues states that mostly depend on local revenue.

Dick is correct to be concerned about the rising costs of paying for unfunded retirement system liabilities. Washington is also in good shape here compared to many states, but these costs are increasing as we pay for decisions made in the 1970s. It’s important to recognize that these costs are real and must be paid, but that they do not increase educational outcomes for children today. (Essentially we’re paying for educational costs incurred 20-30-40 years ago that should have been paid then but were not.) Ensuring that we adequately fund BOTH the actual educational needs of our children and the constitutionally required costs of paying for decisions made 40 years ago is the task in front of the Legislature today.

Senate Budget – Unconstitutional Fund Transfer?

In the Senate Republican budget they transfer $166 million of the “Common School Construction Fund” into the operating budget. The Treasurer does not believe he has the constitutional authority to make this transfer and has said so publicly. The Senate Republicans are waving a letter from their staff attorney that says it’s all right. I’m not a lawyer, but the arguments from the Senate staff sounded like counting angels dancing on the head of pins.

The constitutional language in question is in Article IX, Section 3

There is hereby established the common school construction fund to be used exclusively for the purpose of financing the construction of facilities for the common schools. The sources of said fund shall be: (1) Those proceeds derived from the sale or appropriation of timber and other crops from school and state lands subsequent to June 30, 1965, other than those granted for specific purposes; (2) the interest accruing on said permanent common school fund from and after July 1, 1967, together with all rentals and other revenues derived therefrom and from lands and other property devoted to the permanent common school fund from and after July 1, 1967; and (3) such other sources as the legislature may direct. That portion of the common school construction fund derived from interest on the permanent common school fund may be used to retire such bonds as may be authorized by law for the purpose of financing the construction of facilities for the common schools.

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Town Hall Wrap

Town Hall March 2013-1

 

Another town hall meeting. I should go back on the calendar and count how many we’ve done. These have been fun over the years and we keep fiddling with the formula. This time we had a full room so we took questions on index card. I read the cards exactly, and I think I read most of the questions. We get to more questions this way with fewer repeats, and some people like this. (We hear from them afterwards.) Some people would prefer to ask their question directly, and I think we’ll try to allocate more time for that as well. To do this we would have to be less long-winded.

Town Hall March 2013-3

We got questions on a variety of topics. I’d say the top were Education funding, and why are we even considering changing anything about how the system works, Healthcare, particularly the Medicaid expansion, overall budget/tax questions, including the 2/3 vote threshold issue on which Rodney and I disagree. Cyrus seems to be on my side of this. I gave the speech on super-majorities that I’ve done a number of times – referencing the founders of both the US and Washington State, the Federalist Papers, and other historical arguments about why the system outlined in the constitution actually works pretty well and we should stick with it. It’s available to read in the last newsletter I sent out.

You’ll hear more from me on education funding when we roll out our budget in a few weeks. (Secret knowledge: I think the that making “steady and measurable progress” on McCleary as the court has called for will require an additional $1.4 billion in new funds this year. If I can make this work in a budget I will do so.)

Town Hall March 2013-2

We are absolutely doing the Medicaid expansion as well. It saves hundreds of millions and covers hundreds of thousands of new people, most of them the working poor. My favorite example of why people don’t really understand how this impacts people was a moment at my drycleaners a few years ago. I was discussing the bill with one of the owners. She talked clearly about how hard it was to get medical care. They had coverage for the kids through Apple Health, but not for the parents. Another customer was there at the same time and I don’t think she realized until that moment that people can work hard, run a successful small business, and not be able to afford care. The Affordable Care Act will make care available to everyone at reasonable cost, and we’re working hard to bring it to Washington this year.

My most disappointing thing this year is our failure to get the votes to pass HB 1588, the bill requiring background checks for firearms sales. The bill is reasonably written, with exceptions for concealed pistol license holders, etc. I spent an entire day counting votes and came up 1 short to pass a bill that would not have had crippling amendments. This would have required a vote of the people before it was adopted. This policy is supported by over 80% of my constituents. I’ve been buried in mail on the issue – on both sides. I apologize for sending a form response. There are too many emails to address individually.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions we didn’t address. Thank you for coming and for keeping these civil experiences for 10 years.

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Education Bills and Background

School bus pictureLots has been happening on the education front this year, though the most important thing is happening in closed rooms as the House and Senate work out their budget proposals. I sat on a school funding panel in front of the Washington State School Directors Association today with Sen. Bruce Dammeier (R- Puyallup), Rep. JT Wilcox (R-Yelm), and Sen. Andy Billig (D-Spokane.)

All of us were willing to make substantial investments in K12 education funding, though we all had weird conditions and our numbers were all over the map, ranging from $900 million for the House Republicans to $1.4 billion from me, the amount specified by the Joint Legislative Task Force on Education Funding this summer. I take this as a hopeful sign – they’ve all figured out that we have to invest in a quality system in order to get the results that we want.

Continue reading “Education Bills and Background”

Legislative “Progress” – Early March

Cupola of the Legislative Building
Cupola of the Legislative Building

Each Legislative session has a rythym all its own. This one is waiting expectantly for something to happen. I think you’ll see a flurry of activity towards the end of the month as budgets start to get released.

At the beginning of the session I said we had three priorities this year: balancing the budget for both 2013-15 and 2015-17, funding the education improvements required by the McClary decision from the Supreme Court, and implementing the expansion of Medicaid made possible under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as “Obamacare.” I still believe these are the correct items to focus on, though a stretch goal would be to implement a reasonable package of road and transit improvements.

We’re making progress on all three fronts, though I think some new items have raised their heads and required attention.

  • Gun safety, for obvious reasons. Advocates came in with an expansive agenda, but seem to have focused for this year on finally closing the “gun show loophole” that allows people to purchase guns from private sellers without undergoing background checks. HB 1588 is a reasonable response, creating a way for background checks to take place on almost all sales without creating a centralized database of gun ownership, something very concerning to some people. I support the bill and am a co-sponsor.
  • Mental health treatment improvements. We trail the nation in the number of community mental health hospital beds, and don’t have a very strong system of providing support for people who have dangerous mental health issues. The ACA will change some of this, giving many more people access to care in reasonable ways, but we are going to need to strengthen both our civil involuntary committment procedures and our forensic system, closing some awkward gaps. More below.

I’ve also had a lot of questions about the Supreme Court’s ruling the Eyman initiatives requiring a 2/3 vote for tax increases unconstitutional. The ruling was pretty unequivocal – all bills pass with a simple majority in the Legislature, as the constitution intended. I’ve written a response to the many emails on this topic that I include below.

I’m going to write about the education bills in a different post because otherwise this one will get too long.

Continue reading “Legislative “Progress” – Early March”