The 2008 General Assembly is now in session
Week 7 Update—February 22, 2008
House and Senate versions of the two-year state budget for fiscal years 2009 and 2010, along with amendments to the current fiscal year budget, were released last Sunday and subsequently approved by their respective chambers on Thursday. Developing a compromise budget will be one of the legislature final acts as this year’s session heads toward a scheduled March 8 adjournment.
The House Education Committee is scheduled to meet on Mondays at 9:00 a.m. in House Room C and Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m. in the Appropriations Room. The Senate Education and Health Committee meets on Thursdays at 8:30 a.m. in Senate Room B. Sub-committees will meet periodically throughout the session. The last day for bills to be considered in committee is Monday, March 3. Click here for a schedule of weekly meetings.
The Budget
The House and Senate money committees last Sunday released differing versions of a proposed state spending plan for 2008-2010, just days after Governor Kaine announced that the state’s expected revenue shortfall for the next 28 months totals nearly $1.4 billion. Subsequently, both chambers approved their plans later in the week, the House with only five negative votes and the Senate on a party line vote of 21 to 19. Both plans identify millions in savings for the remainder of FY08 and over the next biennium to bring proposed spending in line with anticipated revenues. Both propose withdrawals from the state’s “rainy day” in the current fiscal year, the House in the amount of $225 million and the Senate in the amount of $423 million, the maximum allowed. It is likely that this gap will be a major source of disagreement when senior budget negotiators try to hammer out a compromise spending plan over the next two weeks.
Some critical changes are proposed for public education funding. The House includes several changes in funding methodology that would negatively impact localities well beyond the upcoming biennium. The House plan proposes to recognize only state-awarded salary increases granted in the state budget in rebenchmarking (or updating) education costs for support personnel for the 2008-2010 budget. This methodology would extend to teacher salaries the following biennium. The effect of this change would lower state dollars for rebenchmarking by as much as $400 million in the 2010-2012 budget. In the upcoming biennium, the House plan shifts some of those dollars to teacher pay raises (see details below) and to increasing school construction grants by $35 million, but there is no guarantee that these “saved” dollars would not be shifted elsewhere in the future. The House also proposes to increase the federal revenue deduction, which results in a savings to the state but an increase in required local costs, and caps state contributions for cost of living increases for retirement benefits for teachers, which would shift additional teacher retirement costs to localities.
Meanwhile, the Senate plan makes no such methodology changes, but does seize half of the current $55 million construction grant dollars. The Senate also diverts about $17 million each year in anticipated lottery profits that normally would go to localities to help pay the state share of education. The governor had proposed diverting the entire $55 million in school construction grants, and $165 million of lottery proceeds to pay state K-12 basic aid costs.
The House proposes a 2% pay raise for teachers, effective December 1, 2008, and sets aside $85 million for a second-year salary increase. The Senate, meanwhile, proposes a 2.5% teacher pay hike, effective December 1, 2009. Both plans also capture savings by changing the retirement amortization period from 24 to 30 years, saving the state more than $50 million.
Both budgets also raid the Literary Fund, the House to the tune of $45 million and the Senate by $14 million. This strategy has been used liberally over the past two decades to provide general funds for teacher retirement. Both plans also alter the pre-K initiative introduced by the governor, the House refusing to adopt the proposed expansion and the Senate building on the program currently in place. Also, the House reduces leadership development grants by $400,000 over the biennium, while the Senate plan eliminates the entire $1 million amount.
Click here for additional information about the House and Senate approved versions for the remainder of FY08 and for the 2008-2010 budget (Budget Info).
Legislation
The House and Senate this past week approved measures to require the Board of Education to develop a database of local school divisions' best practices regarding nutrition and physical education, including results of wellness-related fitness assessments. The bills are HB 246 and SB 61. Meanwhile, HB 242, which would require local school boards to make a program of physical fitness available to all students with a goal of at least 150 minutes per week on average during the regular school year, is still in the Senate Education and Health Committee. Such program may include physical education classes, extracurricular athletics, or other programs and physical activities deemed appropriate by the local school board.
Differing versions of bills concerning Virginia’s withdrawal from the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act are moving forward. The Senate position is to have the Board of Education (BOE) make a recommendation to the General Assembly on Virginia's continued implementation of NCLB, while the House would direct the BOE to develop a plan to withdraw from participation in NCLB by June 30, 2009. Both bills condition the BOE action on the failure of federal waivers being granted to allow Virginia's existing educational accountability system to meet NCLB requirements. The bills are HB 1425 and SB 490.
House Education has approved SB 640 to require that mental health education and awareness, in order to reduce the stigma of mental illness, be covered in family life education curricula.
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