Schools

State Budget Hits Education Across the State and in Shoreline, LFP Hard

"We've hit the cliff," says deputy superintendent Marcia Harris as Shoreline faces more than 7 percent cut to its budget

State lawmakers have reached a deal for a two-year budget that cuts teacher pay by almost 2 percent and cuts salaries for other K-12 and state employees by 3 percent.

The $32.2 billion budget for 2011-13, which lawmakers must still approve before the special session ends Wednesday, also drops funding to reduce class sizes for kindergarten through fourth grade.

 “This budget was probably the hardest to write in decades,” said Rep. Ross Hunter (D-Medina), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, in a statement Tuesday about the budget deal. “The slow speed of the economic recovery is still having a significant impact on our state’s revenues and we didn’t have the prospect of any help from the federal government this year.”

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“We worked hard to protect our basic priorities,” Hunter continued. “Educating children is the paramount duty of the state and we do the best job we can. We maintain health care for children and the disabled, and we mitigate some of the cuts in higher education.”

 Under the budget, certificated teachers and classified staff salaries are cut 1.9 percent, while administrative staff get a 3 percent cut like other state employees.

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 Funding is dropped to reduce K-4 class sizes, meaning average class sizes for kindergarten through third grade will rise to 25.23 children, up from 23.11, and for fourth grade to 27, up from 26.15. High-poverty schools get a break if more than half of their students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

 The Shoreline School District will be likely cutting about $6.2 million out of its $80 million-plus budget for 2011-12, or more than 7 percent.

 Money that supported things like class size reduction in the K-4 grades, extended kindergarten, summer school and tutoring is gone. In their absence, the YMCA supports some programs, others are tuition-based and the Associated Student Body fees at the middle schools were raised at Monday’s School Board meeting to pay for continued services for students.

“We believe we can maintain our programs for one year,” Shoreline’s deputy superintendent Marcia Harris said. “Our biggest hit is elementary class size funding and other money for class size reductions. We’re working together with the other members of the (administrative team) and other employee groups through the district to see how we’re going to cope with this.”

Federal stimulus money and federal education jobs money helped the district avoid a funding cliff the last two years but now that the money is gone, “we’ve hit the cliff,” Harris said.

 “The lack of funding from the state has been somewhat hidden the last two years,” Harris said. “Now it’s a reality as those funds have dried up.”

 Six teachers in the district received layoff notices earlier this month but that was mostly because of declines in enrollment.

 Harris, who has worked in school finance for the state of Washington for 36 years—five years in the state superintendent’s office and 31 with school districts—said this is the worse budget crisis in public education she’s seen.

 “It was pretty rough in the early 1980s. But this is worse,” she said, and made note of the cuts that were made during the school year. “When you have a budget plan and have cutbacks in mid-budget that is extremely painful and hard to make up.”

 Randy Dorn, the state superintendent of public instruction, was clearly disappointed with the cuts to education.

 “Our Constitution is very clear: education is the state’s ‘paramount duty,’” he said in response to the budget. “Our children are to receive a basic education, funded by the state. The proposed cuts to teacher salaries, classroom sizes in early grades, alternative learning programs and Medicaid billing are all basic education. I believe those cuts are unconstitutional and will lead to fewer teachers and larger class sizes. In short, they will mean that students in Washington state will not receive as complete an education as they did just a few years ago.”

 Sen. Joseph Zarelli, who led budget talks for Senate Republicans, said the budget was “truly bipartisan.” He noted that the budget preserves but reduces the cost of the state Basic Health Plan and Disability Lifeline, and consolidates back-office government functions.

 “Within this budget, we address the greatest fiscal crisis of our time,” said Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle), chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. “More than anything, this budget reflects the struggles felt by families and businesses across the state,” he said. “We’re all in this together–and by working together, we can produce a budget that we can all stand behind in the end.”

 The budget, which cuts broadly, protects lawmakers’ pay, The Associated Press notes in its budget coverage.

 Gov. Chris Gregoire said in a statement Tuesday that lawmakers “made the difficult decisions needed to balance our state budget. They took the right approach by not relying on short-term fixes or budget gimmicks, and they met my requirement to leave a sizable ending fund balance to ensure we have the resources needed to carry us through our economic recovery.”

 Gregoire acknowledged that under the new budget, “many families will lose critical state services that they’ve come to rely on.”  And she called on communities “to reinforce the state’s safety net, and help ensure that our most vulnerable are cared for.”


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