Of Legislative Matters
Feb. 5th was one of the key dates in the 60-day legislative session. It was the policy cut-off in the House of Origin.
Here are the next key dates:
Feb. 9th: Fiscal Cut-off in the House of Origin
Feb. 17: House of Origin Cut-off
Feb. 26th: Policy Cut-off in the Opposite House
Feb. 29th: Fiscal Cut-off in the Opposite House
March 4th: Opposite House Cut-off
March 10th: Last Day of Session
To note, Feb. 9th is this Tuesday. By then, that leaves about one month left in the session. I wouldn't say the legislature has set out a particularly ambitious session (except from their own viewpoints) but there are good things in there for public education.
These include:
- simple majority for school bond measures
- financing school facilities
- levy cliff
- high school graduation assessments requirements (SHB 2214 and HB 1855)
- of special interest to me and other public ed activists, a bill, HB 2576, to limit the amount of time any agency has to devote to fulfilling public disclosure requests
- both bills on raising the amount for school district directors compensation both passed out of committees. (SB 6459 and HB 2851)
Feb. 17: House of Origin Cut-off
Feb. 26th: Policy Cut-off in the Opposite House
Feb. 29th: Fiscal Cut-off in the Opposite House
March 4th: Opposite House Cut-off
March 10th: Last Day of Session
To note, Feb. 9th is this Tuesday. By then, that leaves about one month left in the session. I wouldn't say the legislature has set out a particularly ambitious session (except from their own viewpoints) but there are good things in there for public education.
These include:
- simple majority for school bond measures
- financing school facilities
- levy cliff
- high school graduation assessments requirements (SHB 2214 and HB 1855)
- of special interest to me and other public ed activists, a bill, HB 2576, to limit the amount of time any agency has to devote to fulfilling public disclosure requests
- both bills on raising the amount for school district directors compensation both passed out of committees. (SB 6459 and HB 2851)
However, that does not - in any way, despite the posturing of some - negate the lack of any real work on McCleary. That some Republicans can't even agree to the terms of the one bill (HB 2366) (SB 6195) that came out of the Governor's work group (they want to push the timeline further out), should tell you something about their commitment to the work.
My belief is that there are those who want to dally and delay as long as possible. Both sides agree it will be a heavy lift and there is no single source of existing money for McCleary. We all get that but honestly, where's there's a will, there's a way. It would appear that some are quite myopic on this point.
Here's a great legislative wrap-up from WSSDA (Washington State School Seattle Schools Community Forum: Of Legislative Matters: