UPDATE: Educators Concerned Over 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.”

“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.

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 response from the state's educators has been harsh.

In University Place, School Board member Kent Keel said it’s too early to exactly how the cuts will affect the school district. Patch informed him of the compromise Tuesday.

But he said he was personally concerned over the potential mandate to cut teacher and staff salaries.

“One entity is trying to dictate to another entity how to pay for their salaries, he said. “These are negotiated contracts.”

Those sentiments echo a letter that UP Superintendent Patti Banks sent to local state legislators last month that described the problems the cuts could create.

"While I understand that no public expenditure can be considered exempt from necessary budget reductions," she wrote, "the requirement for each district to bargain these reductions (in some cases with up to nine different bargaining groups) will create demoralizing and destabilizing conflict at the local district level, require expenditures of time and scarce resources to resolve these conflicts, and most likely produce disparate and inequitable outcomes for staff, students and their communities."

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 today. “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.”

But lawmakers say this was the best compromise they could reach.

Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle): “Within this budget, we address the greatest fiscal crisis of our time.”

“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.”

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.

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.”