House Education Committee introduces bill to elminate field trips

Last week,the House Education Committee introduced legislation that change funding for school trips and extracurricular events--HB 118.

HB 118, also sponsored by Rep. Bob Nonini (R-Coeur d’Alene), Sen. John Goedde (R-Coeur d’Alene), House Speaker Lawerence Denney (R-Midvale), and Senate President Pro Tem Robert Geddes (R-Soda Springs), would significantly change the way school districts are reimbursed for student transportation costs. Under current Idaho law, school districts are reimbursed 85% of the previous year’s bussing costs for transporting students to and from school and field trips. In effect, for every dollar a school district expends on bussing students, the state reimburses the district 85 cents the following year.

This legislation would do several things. First, it would eliminate reimbursement for student field trips. Second, it would require districts with high populations of students in centralized areas to use a different, less financially advantageous, formula for determining transportation reimbursement. Third, the state reimbursement would drop from 85% to 50% for student transportation costs, it would change reimbursement for virtual charter schools from 85% to 70%, and finally, it would reduce reimbursement for charter schools in the initial year of operation from 80% to 60%.

According to the bill sponsors, the changes outlined in HB 118 would potentially save the state millions of dollars. According, to IEA, the more likely scenario is that the savings the state would realize would be shifted to local school districts.

Idaho Legislators confronted by Educators

Teachers confront Legislators

I attended the meeting set up between Goedde and IEA president. Local Educators, legislators, and community members showed up at Coeur d Alene High School at 10am on Saturday. All legislators from Kootenai County were invited. Sayler, Goedde, and Nonini sat on the podium while Hammond and Henderson were in the audience. There was about 100 people in attendance.

Originally, this meeting was to be an opportunity to reassure teachers and educators. However, House Education Committee Chairman Bob Nonini introduced a bill last week as the legislators faced a cut of up to $109 million in the 2010 K-12 education budget. This bill proposed changes to state law that would limit contracts for teachers to a single year.

I was stunned by the angry and defensive responses from Nonini and Goedde. From my seat in the audience, it did not take long to understand that these educators were afraid about their ability to secure a future. Many of the instructors brought legitimate feedback regarding the bill. George Sayler shared the educators' concerns and added his frustration to the conversation while informing Nonini and Goedde that this was reactionary governing without foresight.

You should check out these links:

Legislation draws ire of teachers by Rick Thomas at the Coeur d Alene Press

Idaho lawmakers suggest education cuts by KXLY coverage

Hearings delayed on bill that would end multi-year teacher contracts IdahoStatesman.com

Taking a bite out of education Rexburg Standard Journal

Will Stimulus Really Save Idaho Education?
New West, MT - 23 hours ago
... Education Committee chairman Bob Nonini (R-Coeur d’Alene) postponed three days of hearings, scheduled to start Monday, on two education cost-cutting ...

Note: Nonini and Goedde both said at the Education meeting yesterday that the bill was postponed for a week until more information about the stimulus package was in but they did not say it was off the table. They said that this bill was asked for by the administrators and school board members. Though Sayler said many of those individuals never saw the final draft before printing of the bill. Nonini said that they were aware of the content and it was the direct result from what they were asked to create.


Final, question: Where was Representative Marge Chadderdon? She is the member of the House Education Committee and an elected official Leg Dist 4. Sayler was there. Goedde was there, so where was Chadderdon?

Nonini and Goedde take a swing at education!

The House Education Committee voted yesterday morning to print two bills that not only propose to reduce next year’s appropriation for public schools by millions of dollars from this year’s budget but would also gut the state’s collective bargaining law for teachers. The two bills address issues that some legislators believe are necessary for dealing with the state’s financial crisis. One of the bills (H0118) deals strictly with transportation issues will take away funding for field trips and extracurricular activities trips. In Coeur d Alene school district would lose 30% of their funding. Superintendent Hazel Bauman said this would mean that field trips would be canceled unless children and their parents paid more out of pocket expense.

The other one (H0117) lumps all the budget cuts together and substantially alters the law under which teachers have negotiated their master contracts since 1971.

This bill would

• Eliminate the Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP)
• Freeze one year’s worth of teacher and administrator movement on the salary schedule
• Freeze the multiplier at the current level on the statewide salary schedule
• Change the deadline for notifying employees of re-employment from May 25 to July 1
• Allow districts to reduce the pay or contract days of continuing contract teachers, even in the middle of a year, with the stipulation that any such reductions cannot impact student-teacher contact time
• Permit districts to increase the length of a contract without a commensurate salary increase
• Eliminate a formal hearing process for reduction of salary or reduction of contract time for employees and only allow them an informal review with all other affected employees in one hearing
• Allow districts to hire only 95% of the state-funded teaching positions, rather than the current 100%, without losing funding
• Reduce the number of administrative positions funded by the state by 4.7%
• Reduce the maximum length of principal and assistant superintendent contracts from two years to one year
• Specify that master contracts expire at the end of each fiscal year (June 30) and that no terms or conditions carry forward
• Grant districts the right to impose a Reduction in Force (RIF) and reduce salaries and contract days after the expiration of master contracts if a financial emergency is declared by the state

Superintendent Tom Luna has been saying that, other than eliminating ERIP, any statutory changes would be temporary. However, there is not a single sunset clause attached to any of these proposals. They would all be permanent.

How does gutting the collective bargaining and teacher contract laws help the state deal with its financial woes? The fiscal note attached to the bill answers that question by acknowledging that the bargaining provisions “do not have a fiscal impact on the state.” They are included in the legislation to “provide school districts with the additional tools and flexibility that they will need to manage a likely reduction in state funding for employee salaries.”

Bill (H0117) was introduced by Rep. Bob Nonini (R-Coeur d’Alene) who is also the chair of the House Education Committee and is co-sponsored by Speaker of the House Lawerence Denney (R-Midvale), Senate President Pro Tem Sen. Bob Geddes (R-Soda Springs), and Sen. John Goedde (R-Coeur d’Alene), chair of the Senate Education Committee.

The legislators who voted against this draconian measure were Donna Pence (D-Gooding), Liz Chavez (D-Lewiston), Branden Durst (D-Boise), Sue Chew (D-Boise) and Tom Trail (R-Moscow). They were outnumbered by Mack Shirley (R-Rexburg), Sharon Block (R-Twin Falls), Pete Nielsen (R-Mountain Home), Marge Chadderdon (R-Coeur d’Alene), Paul Shepherd (R-Riggins), Rich Wills (R-Glenns Ferry), Steven Thayn (R-Emmett), Marc Gibbs (R-Grace), Stephen Hartgen (R-Twin Falls), and Jeff Thompson (R-Idaho Falls).

Representatives Donna Boe (D-Pocatello) and Jim Marriott (R-Blackfoot) were absent and did not vote.

IEA President Sherri Wood told a reporter: “Basically, it’s an attack on collective bargaining and negotiations that have been in place since 1971. It says every contract will end at the end of the school year and you have to start all over again. That’s just an attack on educators, and has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with budget cuts. This is mean-spirited and it’s wrong, and it doesn’t need to happen.”

Sen. Shawn Keough (R-Sandpoint) told the same reporter that she is “distressed” by this far-reaching legislation. “It looks as though a sledgehammer was used when a scalpel was needed. My experience has been that the teachers union and teachers individually understand where we are with our economy, and have been trying to work with some of us …. Today’s developments are distressing …. We need everybody to pull together. This doesn’t do us any good, in my opinion.”

Note: the House and Senate Education Committees will hold a joint hearing next week, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Monday, Feb. 16, and continuing Tuesday and Wednesday. The hearing is scheduled to last until 10:30 or 11 a.m. each day. IEA President Sherri Wood will testify Monday morning and other IEA members will share their perspectives as well.

Then, on Friday, Feb. 20, Rep. Nonini and Sen. Goedde will present their committees’ recommendations for next year’s appropriation to the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.

The following Monday, Feb. 23, the House Education Committee will begin debating the collective bargaining bill. A vote will likely be taken shortly thereafter.

ERIP Saves money

The potential loss of the Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP) is especially disheartening to educators who are planning to apply for early retirement this spring. Because of the way the state budgeting process works, the money in the FY09 budget was spent on those teachers who took early retirement at the end of the 2007-2008 school year. Some officials, including Superintendent Luna believe cutting this program would save $4 million in the FY10 budget.

You may have heard the expression, “Never tear down a fence until you know why it was there in the first place.” Let’s take a minute to understand why we have an ERIP. The Legislature created this program in the mid ’90s with the goal of saving the state money by allowing experienced teachers to retire with a bonus payment and being replaced by a less experienced (and less expensive) teacher. Since the implementation of ERIP in FY96, the state has saved approximately $90 million in salary and benefit allocations for the teachers who have chosen to retire early. This savings is above the implementation cost of the program. That’s a huge savings to the state.

How did this savings occur? The average age of ERIP participants has been 58, while the average retirement age for Idaho teachers in general has been at least 60. If each group of retiring teachers had continued to work until they reached the age of 60, they would have continued to make the same or greater salary during those years, depending upon whether the Legislature increased the calculating base salary. Instead, they were replaced by newer teachers and Idaho saved thousands of dollars.

Although the savings haven’t been quite as high over the last few years, projections show that the state will continue to at least triple their investment in this program.

Rep. Fred Wood (R-Burley) raised an important consideration during the JFAC hearing yesterday. He noted that under Superintendent Luna’s proposal, the state will be asking school districts to absorb a $15 million reduction in the salary allocation formula, perhaps by not filling vacated positions. Funding ERIP might encourage more teachers to retire, thus making attrition the least painful way to absorb the $15 million loss.

Luna makes Recommendations for Idaho Schools

Superintendent Tom Luna opened his presentation to members of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee (JFAC) this morning by saying, “I do not want to cut education funding. Unfortunately, with the economic outlook getting worse every day, public education can no longer sit this one out. With input from educational stakeholders from across the state, I crafted a thoughtful, measured and strategic budget that will move student achievement forward in the coming year despite a reduction in the amount of money we will spend.”

He then recommended $62 million in cuts to the FY10 public schools budget:

1. Reduce the discretionary funds by the amount the state distributes for maintenance and allow local school districts to expend maintenance funds on things other than maintenance projects ($20.8 million)
2. Eliminate state reimbursement for field trips, repair trips, etc. ($2.5 million)
3. Do not allow urban districts access to all of the cost-per-mile measures for student transportation ($1.7 million)
4. Reduce the administrative staff allowance in the funding formula, which would effectively eliminate 35-40 administrative positions ($3.9 million)
5. Eliminate the Early Retirement Incentive Program for teachers ($4 million)
6. Freeze the experience movement on the salary grid for one year ($6.13 million)
7. Reduce base salaries for all school personnel (teachers, administrators, and classified employees) by the equivalent of three contract days and specify that local districts decide how to absorb the resulting loss of funds, possibly through attrition, furloughs or pay cuts ($14.15 million)
8. Reduce the discretionary funds by the amount school districts are required to match for textbooks and then relieve districts from the requirement to provide matching funds ($3.3 million)
9. Reduce state funding for textbooks by 40% ($3.8 million)
10. Reduce funding for classroom supplies from $350 to $300 per classroom teacher ($781,000)

Luna also recommended the legislature transfer $17 million from the Public Education Stabilization Fund into next year’s appropriation.

Legislators asks for input

Representative Wendy Jaquet asks for your input as they struggle to find ways to cut education.
Here are some suggestions sent via email across the state:

........Some options for cost savings have been suggested. We could reduce the teacher contract days by five days. This would be a furlough, similar to what is happening in several state agencies. Each day equals $5.3 million dollars; Five days equals $26 .5 million. We could reduce the teacher staff allowance. About 1,400 teachers leave each year. This reduction would reduce the number of teachers by 600. Each district would have the flexibility to protect critical programs. This would save about $37 million dollars. We could also freeze the salary increases for experience for one year, resulting in $6 million in savings.

We could defer new textbooks, $9,950,000 or eliminate state funding for school supplies, $5,379,500. We could repeal the math initiative at $3.9 million dollars. We could eliminate teacher early retirement, $4 million dollars. We could use the $25 million dollars set aside for safety improvements and we could eliminate the maintenance requirement reserve, resulting in $21 million dollars in savings. We could allow appropriate advertising inside school buses.

We could go to a four day school week which could possibly save up to $28 million dollars. We could go to an alternating all day kindergarten and not reimburse for mid-day school bussing, saving $6 million dollars. We could eliminate bussing for field trips, etc. to save $5 million.

Feel free to post your ideas or comments here or contact Representative Jaguet directly at wjaquet@house.idaho.gov or by phone at 208/332-1211.

See rest of email/website click here.

Thank you for your input.

Educators see no easy ways to cut spending on schools - Idaho Statesman

Article posted on Idaho Statesman

Districts face difficult choices in quest to keep budget slashing from affecting kids

By Bill Roberts

Idaho's 272,000 public school students could face a shorter academic year, fewer teachers and staggered kindergartens next fall as public education braces for unprecedented budget cuts caused by the withering economy.

Facing possible reductions of up to $130 million, school districts once planning expanded programs are now talking about saving jobs and protecting student-teacher contact time.

Some parents say the state's priorities are misplaced as leaders talk of cutting education while they consider raising taxes and fees to fix Idaho's roads.

"It's insane," said Amy Ditton, a mother with two children at Paramount Elementary School in Meridian. "The bumpy roads are more important than the country's future."...

But educators are talking about lots of ideas, and every choice comes with an impact:

SHORTEN THE SCHOOL YEAR

Every day shaved off the academic calender saves about $5.3 million statewide...

CUT TEACHERS

The state could reduce the number of instructors it pays by tweaking the formula that allocates teachers to districts...

SAVE ON TRANSPORTATION

In the Marsing School District, Superintendent Harold Shockley is evaluating the pros and cons of saving $45,000 by changing the kindergarten bus schedule...

PUT INITIATIVES ON HOLD

If education must be cut, the state should not be funding initiatives and projects like paying $350 to teachers for supplies each year - at a cost of more than $5 million - until the financial crisis passes, Clark said. "No sacred cows," she said...

For the whole article click here.

Nampa's Jr. Representative, still stumbling - Unequivocal Notion

On January 22nd Chris over at unequivocal notion commented:

One gripe I had about the Idaho Statesman and the Idaho Press-Tribune endorsing Rep. Steve Kren (Nampa, 13B) was that they both acknowledged his weak performances as an appointed two-term representative. Everyone knew that Kren, after two sessions still had a lot to learn, he was still behind the curve.

There was talk about letting him learn the ropes, but that more was expected of him in the 2009 and 2010 legislative sessions.

Well, Nampa, you get what you vote for -- while we should have dedicated lifelong educator Byron Yankey representing Nampa in the legislature when Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna is planning to slash the education budget. Instead we have a representative doing his own bidding and the bidding for big Idaho lobbyists...

(For Example)

...Rule to toughen septic-system standards narrowly clears subcommittee

A House subcommittee narrowly approved a rule toughening standards for new septic systems Tuesday, but a final decision on changes opposed by the Idaho Association of Realtors won't be made for some time.

On a 3-2 vote, the subcommittee of the House, Energy and Environment Committee sent the rule to the full committee with a recommendation for approval. Supporters were GOP Reps. Eric Anderson of Priest Lake and Steve Hartgen of Twin Falls and Democrat Elaine Smith of Pocatello. GOP Reps. Steve Kren of Nampa and Dick Harwood of St. Maries wanted the rule referred with a recommendation it be rejected.

No worry that Kren accepted $750 from the Idaho Realtor's PAC, you know, the PAC that was just accused of bribing candidates exactly for votes on septic systems. Even after the Idaho Realtor's PAC was outed red-handed by an Treasure Valley Republican, Kren, unabashedly voted for the PAC's concerning the laws governing septic systems...

But no, that wasn't Kren's only stumble of the week old legislative session:

Panel peppers Kren with questions

Rep. Steve Kren, R-Nampa, got himself peppered with questions today when he proposed legislation in the House Resources Committee to limit so-called "super hunts" mostly to state residents, allowing only 10 percent of the permits to go to non-residents...

“I think it’s important that Fish & Game works hard for the sportsmen, and understands that it’s the residents of the state who they work for.”

Kren, who said he’s entered the raffle himself “a couple of years” since it began four years ago, never checked with Fish & Game before introducing the bill. F&G information supervisor Ed Mitchell said the super hunt permits are a special deal, “a whole separate thing to raise money for our Access Yes program.” That program pays landowners for easements to allow hunters access; it’s ensured access to about half a million acres statewide so far, and the department hopes to take it up to a million acres. Last year, the super hunt raffle raised about $140,000 for the access program.

[...]

Resources committee members closely questioned Kren about whether his bill would cost Fish & Game money at a time when it’s strapped and seeking a fee increase. “Will that impact revenues for Fish & Game?” asked Rep. George Sayler, D-Coeur d’Alene. “I don’t believe it will,” Kren responded.

When do we hold our legislatures accountable?

For the rest of the post click here.