Excerpts taken from WSSDA Daily Update by Dan Steele

Yesterday, legislative fiscal committees met to hear and adopt bills before cut-off deadline of midnight. All bills must be passed out of their original house fiscal committee by tonight in order to remain alive. Of course, budget bills and bills determined to be “budget-related” are exempt from most of the Legislature’s cut-off dates. And they worked well into the late evening in both Ways and Means Committees.  Most of the action in the next week-and-a-half will be in the House and Senate chambers and the respective political caucuses as legislators attempt to adopt bills from their original house prior to the next deadline. Thursday, March 12 is the last day to consider bills in their house of origin (that is, House bills in the House and Senate bills in the Senate). Bills failing to meet this hurdle will be technically dead for the session.

The big news of the day was activity in the House Education Appropriations Committee. The Committee held a special meeting just to hold a public hearing on HB 2261, the “intent only” bill regarding a new K-12 education finance system. We learned late on Friday that the Committee might be taking action on a Proposed Substitute version of the bill — and we feared that the Substitute might just be a rehash of the now-dead HB 1410 (the original House bill to implement recommendations from the Basic Education Task Force). When we arrived at the Committee hearing, there was in fact a Proposed Substitute of HB 2261; however, if the original bill was a hollow skeleton, the Proposed Substitute was simply a skeleton with a bit of meat on its bones. The Substitute did not include a lot of details about a new education funding system, but it did provide a bit more clarity in terms of the direction legislators (at least members in the House) intended to go. Rep. Pat Sullivan, the prime sponsor of the bill, stated that he and other members recognized a lot more work is needed to craft a final bill — and he was committed to continue that work — but the Substitute was intended to provide a platform to discuss some of the major issues at hand. Rep. Kathy Haigh, Chair of the Committee, also remarked that much work needed to be done; however, she and other members were “working with intention” and were working on getting the job done the right way. Legislators should be applauded for their efforts to keep this process moving — and Reps. Sullivan and Haigh should be applauded for their leadership on this tough but crucial task. 

Following the public hearing, Rep. Haigh quickly moved the Committee into executive session to pass the bill out. In asking for Committee members’ support, Rep. Sullivan again said that this bill is a “work in progress” and it is a long way from being complete; however, a “yes” vote in Committee was a vote to continue the discussion  Rep. Don Cox commented that he was concerned about some of the details that were not yet in the bill — specifically, the lack of discussion about a small schools factor — and, while he wanted to continue the discussion, felt it was important for him to register his concerns and vote “no” on the bill. Rep. Ross Hunter noted that there are many details that are not yet in the bill; however, he provided his personal commitment to ensure that some type of small school factor was ultimately included in the bill. The House Education Appropriations Committee adopted the Substitute version of HB 2261 with a vote of 12-1 (and one member excused). The bill now moves to the full House for its action.

The next several days, until March 12, all action will occur on the floors of the Seante and the House, then we start this entire process over with opposite houses hearing the bills passing the orginal floor.

The excitment and energy in Olympia for kids is contagiuos - please wrote your legislators to thank them for their leadership on these issues.