Education Funding Changes Signed into Law
In March of last year, Governor Inslee signed E2SSB 6362, the “fixes” to last session’s EHB 2242 on education funding. This law:
- Moves salaries to the 2018-19 school year for CIS, CLS, and CAS, as defined in the budget. (Section 202; For 2018-19 school year, the budget would increase the statewide minimum salary allocation to CIS=$65,216.05 o CAS=$96,805.00 o CLS=$46,784.33);
- Limits salary increases to cost of living, step increases, enrollment changes, and for CIS, professional learning and national board bonuses (Sections 204, 207, 208);
- Holds districts that meet certain criteria harmless ($12 million is set aside for districts meeting the criteria; funding is prioritized based on criteria in Section 401);
- Requires districts to create a subaccount for local revenues, including enrichment levies, and requires districts for the 2018-19 school year to spend enrichment levies for enrichment activities only (Sections 301, 302, 306, 307);
- Extends K-3 class size compliance to 2019-20 school year (Section 101);
- Increases special education multiplier from .9309 percent to .9609 percent (Section 102);
- Removes the word “resident” from statutes related to LEA and levies (Sections 303 and 307);
- Creates a three-year rolling average for high-poverty LAP (Section 101);
- Allows a district west of the Cascades to get a 6% regionalization factor if it borders a district that is one tercile higher than that district (Section 203);
- Creates a four-year 4% experience factor increase for districts that have CIS median years of experience that exceed the statewide average CIS staff years of experience and a ratio of CIS staff advanced degrees to bachelor’s degrees above the statewide ratio (Section 203);
- Creates a transportation alternate grant program, when funded, for per pupil transportation costs that exceed what a district receives from the formula (Section 103);
- Creates a work group under OSPI to define a minimum “work day” (recommendations are due by January 14, 2019, Section 209);
- Directs school districts to take certain actions related to highly capable students (Section 105); and
- Does not include limits to half-days, early release, late starts.
Details on the effects on funding statewide and for each school district can be found OSPI 2018-19 Budget Updates page http://www.k12.wa.us/SAFS/18budprp.asp .
Governor Inslee vetoed two sections of E2SSB 6362:
- Vetoed the section (Section 402) that would have delayed professional development to the 2019-20 school year. With the veto, districts should receive one day of professional development for the 2018-19 school year. TJ Kelly of OSPI has indicated the Multi-Year Budget Comparison Tool will be updated by May and sent to districts.
- Vetoed the section (Section 408) that would have required OSPI to create rules about separate accounting of state and local revenues to expenditures in time for the 2018-19 school year.
Sections 303 (LEA changes, including eliminating the word “resident”) and 307 (levy changes, including eliminating the word “resident”) take effect January 1, 2019. Everything else takes effect June 7, 2018.
