State Budget Hits Education Hard

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 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 take a 3 percent cut like other state employees.

In the Sumner School District, one certificated employee has been laid off, but Superintendent Gil Mendoza said Wednesday that while he and his staff are still analyzing their own budget, they do not see further positions being cut.

“Obviously it will potentially impact peoples' salaries and additional reductions to what we have already anticipated,” Mendoza said.

The district faces an estimated $1.1 million budget gap, less than the $3.4 million initially anticipated because of a $2 million reserve and other short-term revenue sources, including a local levy.

State 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.

Mendoza said that while he is pleased that his district is likely to avoid further job cuts–“our goal is to keep it as far away from the classroom as possible”–it is still a difficult situation.

“You always expect the worst-case scenario, but it’s not to the worst-case scenario yet,” he said. “But education took a pretty high percent of the budget cuts, and to me, that is unwarranted … Education is an obligation of the Legislature to fully fund us, as per our Constitution.

“The focus of going to education (for budget cuts) is always just too easy to take, and part of that has to do with how the Legislature defines basic education.”

The Sumner School District is expected to adopt a budget for the 2011-12 school year in August.

“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.”

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. Christine 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.”