Thoughts on the Budget Forecast

2012 has come early! Repent! REPENT!

Last year we had a $9,000,000,000 hole that hurt, but at least we had a lot of options for what we could cut, and we had stimulus money that made things better than they would have been otherwise.

This year we have a $2.5 billion dollar hole, and we’re screwed hardcore.

The thought being expressed by some now is that we have to look at revenue possibilities—a tax increase—because the cuts that are coming are just too much for the system to handle. With regards to the schools I’m 99% sure that levy equalization is dead when the Governor releases her budget next month (she just as much said so on Weekday this morning), because that’s one of the few areas in the education budget that can be cut and because the schools that are impacted by levy equalization are mainly in legislative districts represented by Republicans. Want to put pressure on a Joel Kretz or Joseph Zarelli? Cut their schools.

That said, I don’t think the political will is going to be there for any democrat to vote for a tax increase. I often think about John Driscoll in the 6th LD, who won his 2008 election against John Ahern by about 100 votes. The intent behind voting to raise taxes doesn’t really matter when it’s drilled down to a soundbite: “JOHN DRISCOLL VOTED TO RAISE YOUR TAXES!” Even someone like Sen. Lisa Brown out of the 3rd LD in Spokane isn’t immune to that pressure, because if she does have her eyes on running for Governor in 2012, does she want the “She voted to raise your taxes during the Great Recession!” tag following her around, even if it is a principled vote?

It gets worse. The community colleges are in line to get pillaged, which is ridiculous right now in a time when unemployment is 10% and the CCs are needed now more than ever. The University system already has choked down 30% tuition hikes; how much more can we ask of the college kids? If we believe that there’s an abiding interest in having a system of public universities in the state, then what level of support do we need to show?

I’m really not looking forward to going to my members and telling them about the hit they’re going to take. It’s going to be brutal.

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Errrrrr..........

From Rep. Bruce Chandler's web site:

The quarterly revenue forecast for Washington was released today, with state forecaster Dr. Arun Raha predicting another decrease in expected revenue for state government. Dr. Raha predicted with tax collections down and continued weak economic activities, revenue will decrease about $760 million in the state's two-year budget.

Rep. Bruce Chandler, R-Granger, said that while the decline in revenue is serious, it represents just .004 percent of the state's revenue. He is confident Washington will rebound from the recession stronger and more prosperous.

.004%?

That means if you multiplied $760,000,000 by 250, you'd have one percent of the state's revenue. That equals $190 billion dollars.

Of course, then you can multiply that by 100 to get the full state revenue, which is an impressive $19,000,000,000,000, or $19 trillion dollars.

Or, another possibility, Rep. Chandler meant to say 4%, which then multiplies up to about $19 billion dollars. Of course, the decimal equivalent for 4% is .04, not .004, but all the same.....

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Liveblogging the State Revenue Forecast

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
AHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHH!
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHH!

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What is National Board Certification, Anyhow?

Education expert Liv Finne doesn't really seem to know what National Board Certification is:

The Seattle Times article also reveals that, in order to qualify for these funds, the state will be attempting to describe its National Board Certification for teachers as a performance pay system. This program does not involve evaluating the individual performance of teachers for their effectiveness in the classroom. Rather, National Board Certification gives bonuses to teachers willing to take another set of classes and/or willing to work in inner-city classrooms.

"Gives bonuses to teachers willing to take another set of classes" is a real slap at the work that National Board Certified teachers have to do to get the certificate. It's not the Masters degree, Liv, it's something far beyond that. I talk pretty regularly with the teachers in my district who have gotten their certification and who are working towards it, and it's not an easy thing.

I'll be interested to see where the state's gambit on this goes, though. Remember that the HB2261, the big education reform bill from the last session, created a new definition of a master teacher that requires attaining National Certification to get to the top of the pay scale, an action that predates all of the clamor around Race to the Top, so the state could be slightly ahead of the curve.

Remember, too, that in his remarks to the NEA Representative Assembly earlier this year Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke highly of both the National Board program:

We also increased the number of National Board Certified teachers in Chicago to about 1,200—from about a dozen when I started. We partnered with the union and with the Chicago Public Education Fund, which is a group of business leaders. Together we grew NBC teachers faster than anywhere else in the nation.

....but he also indicated that collaboration matters:

The president and I have both said repeatedly that we are not going to impose reform but rather work with teachers, principals, and unions to find what works.

Here in Washington State you've got a system where the teachers and the WEA are working very strongly together on promoting and expanding National Certification in Washington State. If Secretary Duncan believes in the program, and if he wants to encourage that collaboration, why not have what we do count towards Race to the Top?

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I Don't Know What the Path Back to Relevance Is, But I Do Know This Ain't It

From the homepage of the Spokane County GOP:

The time to act is upon us! Stand up for your beliefs, find a candidate who will do the same, ensure they are indeed conservative, and support them. If they fail to stand up for conservative principles, MAKE THEM WALK THE PLANK! If they indicate they are conservative, then vote against conservative principles MAKE THEM WALK THE PLANK! If they are members of the Republican Party, make them follow the planks of the platform, or MAKE THEM WALK THE PLANK!

Read the whole thing; the gist is that if Republican candidates can't follow all the planks of the Republican platform, then they need to get out of the Republican Party. Scozzafava, writ local.

That said, have the Spokane County Republicans taken a look at their party platform lately?

• Republicans believe in demanding the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations and revoking sovereignty eroding treaties or agreements like NAFTA, Security & Prosperity Partnership (S. P. P.), CAFTA, etc.
  
• Republicans believe in repealing the "Endangered Species Act".
  
• Republicans believe in privatizing social security and eliminating double taxation of benefits.

These are the big three that jump out, and I'd sincerely ask the county GOP--are you really willing to say that a Republican who runs in the 3rd LD can only call themself a Republican if they're willing to stand up and say that we need to pull out of the United Nations, repeal the Endangered Species Act, and privatize Social Security?

The pisser about a litmus test is that, if it's designed too well, no one will pass it.

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Listen, I Don't Go Looking for Pictures to Blingee, But When I Find Them, What Am I Supposed To Do?

Myspace Glitter Graphics

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So, What's Patrick Byrne Been Up To?

Last year I poked a bit of fun at the Overstock.com founder for his....poor....reaction to a school voucher initiative being defeated in Utah.

And now here he is again, telling the media that he's the one who fed Jon Stewart the famous Jim Cramer videos that fed their kerfuffle earlier this year.

Read the comments on the Reuters article, they're gold.

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Washington Education Week

Or, the WEWee for short. Essentially, the crap that's cluttering up my desktop that makes me go, "You know, that'd be great for the blog!" but that I secretly know I'll never actually get around to devoting an entire post to.

• The Budget Stinks: So I expected that the Caseload Forecast Council might say that there were going to be more K-12 students in the system (they did), and I figured that next week the Revenue Forecast Council would crap in everyone's cereal bowl again (they're going to), so that leads one to believe that the Governor's budget next month is going to be an untold litany of horrors; truly, Chris Gregoire just may be one of the Four Horsemen.
  
  
• Federal Way Stinks: So the schools are likely to take a hit, but the Supreme Court says that's OK because the schools are amply funded anyhow so, hey, what's more cuts? I mean, if everybody EXCEPT you had a school librarian, that wouldn't be fair, but if nobody INCLUDING you has a school librarian, that's equality, baby!
  
  Talk about a race to the bottom. The thing that's being lorded over Federal Way is that their WASL scores aren't terrible, but that only means that X number of kids have gotten over an arbitrary bar. Madness that way lies.
  
  (The Senate Democrats blogged with links aplenty, here. However, since I'm a good union guy and TOTALLY PISSED at the Dems, I encourage you to go and read 5/17 instead.)
  
  
• The NAEP Stinks: Over at Crosscut Dick Lilly wrote what could be considered a call for national standards. Sadly, he wrapped it up in the NAEP, and I'm not frankly a fan. My bottom line--if the NAEP is the "gold standard", then why is there such a big push for national standards? If the NAEP was what it has presented to be, wouldn't we just use the standards it's been written to?
  
  
• Fred Jarrett.....Doesn't Stink? So the dynamic last year around education reform and HB2261 seemed to be that Ross Hunter was leading the charge in the House, Fred Jarrett was leading the charge in the Senate, and everything was going to be awesome until the stupid WEA brought O'Douls to the party (I mean, who does that?!?) and injected politics into education, which was never, ever what Hunter and Jarrett wanted to do while springboarding off of Ed Reform into a run for King County Executive. The WEA, thralls to the Democratic Party that they are, then contributed to an independent expenditure against Democrat Ross Hunter accusing him of actually, literally being Willy Horton. The pleasing end result was that Rep. Hunter finished in 5th place, and when you're not at least a factor of 10 ahead of Goodspaceguy, well, you're not having a good day.
  
  I only rehash all of this because #1 Ross Hunter still exists, and he's coming back.....FOR REVENGE! and #2, Sen. Jarrett got himself appointed to a plum position in the Dow Constantine administration, meaning there'll be a Senate vacancy that could lead to some shuffling in both of our state legislative bodies. One of the commentators on Weekday on KUOW yesterday seemed to think that this would be a real blow to an education reform agenda that may already be teetering under it's own weight; it could be a really interesting dynamic to watch.
  
  
• King5 on the coming pension crisis. Prepare for the savagery to follow when the state passes an income tax and most of us get nothing out of it because all of the money goes towards paying of our Plan 1 obligations.

Have a great week!

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That About Sums It Up

“The country faces a fundamental disconnect between the services the people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and the tax revenues that people are willing to send to the government to finance those services,” he said.

(Via)

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Charter Schools will DEPORT YOU TO MEXICO or Canada or (if you're a Uighar) Barbados. Maybe.

Watch this, then make a firm resolution to yourself that we won't allow the coming debate in Washington State to go that direction.

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