Big 3 Briefing, Week 7 - Fiscal Week

Rainy Day Recess, Episode 7

See our Show Notes

[00:00:00] Christie Robertson: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess. This is week seven of the Big 3 Briefing Series where we're tracking bills in our state legislature related to the key funding priorities for school districts across Washington.

A quick note at the top of the episode: we post transcripts for all episodes, and that means that they can be run through Google Translate, which I know is rather imperfect, but hopefully increases accessibility at least a little bit. If anybody has other ideas to increase accessibility to a broader audience, please let me know at hello@rainydayrecess.org.

I'm Christie Robertson and my co-host for this series is Megan Larkin.

[00:00:45] Megan Larkin: Yes. Hi. Glad to be back. I'm Megan. I have two kids in Seattle Public Schools and some background relevant to this series. I have a Masters in Education Leadership and Policy Studies and used to work in that field. I'm also the Regional Advocacy Co-Chair for the Washington State PTA focusing on Seattle. But I don't speak for any of those organizations. I'm just here as a Big 3 fan. 

And what's your background in education, Christie? What's your journey to get here?

[00:01:16] Christie Robertson: So, I am also the parent of two kids in Seattle Public Schools. And I've been immersed in trying to make sense of the education system since my kid was identified for special education 11 years ago. I've been involved in local school PTAs and the special education PTSA, and I even once ran for school board.

I co-started the Seattle Hall Pass and then Rainy Day Recess podcasts to share out some of what I've learned and help other folks get involved.

[00:01:50] Megan Larkin: Yay. And thank you so much for doing these podcasts. I know particularly during the school closure process at the beginning of the year, this was just a vital resource for so many people. So I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your work.

[00:02:04] Christie Robertson: Oh, it's very gratifying to be able to help.

[00:02:08] Megan Larkin: Yes.

So for those that need a refresher, the Big 3 are special education, pupil transportation, and materials, supplies, and operating costs, or MSOC. I am gratified to see that the Big 3 have really made it out. into the larger ecosystem. I was reading a Seattle Times article and they were like, "many have been following the so-called Big 3." Or legislators that are like, "Oh yeah, we know what MSOC is. " And I'm just like, “Yay, messaging!” We're making it a thing. It's happening.

I also wanted to just circle back and refresh everybody's memory about how big of an impact the Big 3 have. I'm going to pull up some numbers here around how big the deficit is in each of these categories for districts in the 24-25 school year.

• MSOC has around a $613.7 million deficit and 
• Transportation, that's around an $89.6 million deficit. 
• Special education has around a $558.7 million deficit. 

And this is just for one school year. 

[00:03:34] Christie Robertson: We are tracking the small set of bills related to the Big 3 partially as a way to introduce more folks to how the legislative process works, by following these bills every step of the way along their journey.

Policy Cutoff

[00:03:49] Megan Larkin: Yes. So the first major cutoff was last week. If your bill isn't out of the policy committee by then, it's likely done for the session. I think that episode will be linked in the show notes. I believe there were 1,800 bills that were introduced. 

[00:04:09] Christie Robertson: Right, since Bills started being pre-filed before session started up until now.

[00:04:14] Megan Larkin: I don't know how many are still alive, but by the end of this process, it's like one in seven bills or something is going to live. So probably many died in committee. RIP those bills.

[00:04:30] Christie Robertson: I've been tagging all of the bills that seem related to education as they come in, and I have 179 bills on my list. And of those, 76 died on Friday. So there's 103 left. 

Big 3 bills status report

The Big 3, so far, nothing has died.

[00:04:45] Megan Larkin: So far, nothing has died. 

[00:04:55] Christie Robertson: But I have a feeling there will be a funeral on our next episode.

[00:04:59] Megan Larkin: Like, I'm really pulling for the health of the transportation bills, particularly HB 1579 in the House but it's not looking great. It still has not been scheduled for a hearing in Appropriations.

[00:05:13] Christie Robertson: That's right. Everything else has had a hearing, and we are just waiting for them to be voted on this week.

[00:05:21] Megan Larkin: Yes.

[00:05:23] Christie Robertson: The deadline for getting out of their fiscal committees is February 28th, this Friday. And we have some bills scheduled.

[00:05:30] Megan Larkin: Yeah, which is really exciting. February the 27th, which is this Thursday, the Senate Ways & Means Committee is going to have an executive session on SB 5263, which is the Senate special education bill sponsored by Pedersen and Braun and 5192, which is the Senate MSOC bill sponsored by Senator Nobles. 

[00:05:43] Christie Robertson: Okay, MSOC and special ed.

[00:05:50] Megan Larkin: Yes. MSOC and special ed are also scheduled for executive action in Appropriations in the House 

[00:06:04] Christie Robertson: Also on Thursday.

[00:06:05] Megan Larkin: On the 27th. 

[00:06:07] Christie Robertson: So that's the big day.

[00:06:08] Megan Larkin: It is. So, big day for MSOC, big day for special education. I'm noticing that the Senate transportation bill has not been scheduled for executive session. 

[00:06:20] Christie Robertson: Not a good sign. 

[00:06:21] Megan Larkin: Not a great sign.

[00:06:22] Christie Robertson: Not too late. But there have been murmurings that transportation may be left off. 

[00:06:23] Megan Larkin: Yeah. 

[00:06:28] Christie Robertson: If you want to watch the actual hearings on these... Or, actually, it's not hearings; it's just execs. So it might not be as interesting. But what can be interesting is: exec is where you can get substitutions or amendments to bills. So that's what we will be watching for.  

If you do want to watch those sessions, they will be on TVW, and we'll link to them in the show notes, if you have the time and feel like just notching up a little bit on your nerdiness.

[00:07:03] Megan Larkin: Join us. The water's fine.

Fiscal Committees

[00:07:05] Christie Robertson: Okay, so let's talk about the fiscal committees, because things are a little bit different there.

[00:07:10] Megan Larkin: Yes.

[00:07:12] Christie Robertson: They're bigger. There's a lot of legislators on them. 

[00:07:15] Megan Larkin: Yes, that is for sure. 

[00:07:17] Christie Robertson: What else is different? 

[00:07:18] Megan Larkin: So fiscal committees are any committee that deals with the allocation of funds or the raising of revenue. In the House, that's the Finance Committee and the Appropriation Committee. In the Senate, that's the Ways & Means Committee.

As an example for what committees like Ways & Means might be looking at, as opposed to a policy committee, they are going to look at what is in the bill, and then they're going to more narrowly focus around the fiscal impact of that.

[00:07:52] Christie Robertson: For each bill that makes its way to one of the fiscal committees, there is what's called a “fiscal note”. And that is a breakdown of how much each aspect of the bill is estimated to cost.

[00:08:07] Megan Larkin: Yes.

[00:08:08] Christie Robertson: And oftentimes people will talk about there being like a “dial” or a “lever” in a bill, so that they can be like, “Yeah, we want to fund to that, but let's turn it down a little bit to make it fit in the budget better.”

[00:08:20] Megan Larkin: Yeah.

[00:08:20] Christie Robertson: They just go fiddling with those dials in ways that give some of us a stomachache.

[00:08:27] Megan Larkin: Yeah. And they might strip things out of the bills entirely. Like to use the Senate special education bill as an example, it has multipliers in there.

[00:08:38] Christie Robertson: Right, as a refresher, the way special education funding works is by what's called an excess cost multiplier that is allotted to districts for students who are identified for special ed services. On top of their regular apportionment.

[00:08:53] Megan Larkin: Right now, the multiplier in the Senate special Education bill is 1.6381 for pre-K and 1.32 for K-12. That multiplier was already turned down in the policy committee. But it might be at least a topic of discussion in Ways & Means to turn that down more.

[00:09:18] Christie Robertson: And what I'm going to be watching for is the funding for OSPI for, among other things, their inclusionary work. And I think there's definitely a risk of that getting taken out. So that's what I've been going around telling all my legislators: "please, please keep that in."

[00:09:37] Megan Larkin: Yes. I am also hearing that there is a risk of that. And I'd encourage other folks to contact their legislators, especially if you have a legislator that's on Ways & Means. And there are a ton of people on that committee. It's probably worth reaching out. In the show notes, I can link that Big 3 legislator follow-up one pager that I linked last week, which summarizes the things we'd like to see added in.

[00:10:09] Christie Robertson: And along with that, we have a list of legislators on the fiscal committees that are in the Seattle area. So you can check if you belong to one of those legislators. 

The special education bills are SB 5263 and HB 1310. HB 1310 has a higher multiplier right now. So we would like to keep that. And they both currently have the funding for the state superintendent to do the inclusionary work, among other things. 

Oh yeah, and another thing is that they both still have funding to create a statewide IEP system, which would help a great deal in tracking how special education is going across the state. Right now, it's very difficult to get any concrete answers on what's happening from one district to another. Or even within a district. I think it's super important to have a statewide system there.

[00:11:10] Megan Larkin: So we want to reach out and say, “Keep this stuff, please.”

[00:11:14] Christie Robertson: Yes. Okay. the hearings have happened on all the bills that have been scheduled for exec. So that means we can't testify. Or sign in.

[00:11:22] Megan Larkin: Or sign in. Yeah we can watch our legislators during that executive session, and that is also a way of keeping the pressure on a little bit, because of that interest level. And then like Christie was saying, reach out and be like, “Hey, we are paying attention. We know where these bills are, and we're watching very closely what you're putting in and taking out of them. So please put in this stuff that we like, and please keep these multipliers dialed up.” And we will link in the show notes some language for that. 

[00:11:59] Christie Robertson: When will we know what amendments or substitutions have been proposed for these bills? And how will we know?

[00:12:07] Megan Larkin: I don't know.

[00:12:09] Christie Robertson: Well, definitely by the time of the meeting, you can go to the committee materials for a session, and they will have all of the proposed amendments and substitutions there.

[00:12:20] Megan Larkin: Yes,which will be interesting to see. At the time of this recording, I'm looking at the committee materials for the Senate Ways & Means Committee hearing on the 27th, and I'm not seeing any proposed amendments. but we can link to the committee documents, and then as they're updated, folks could see.

[00:12:43] Christie Robertson: And we'll be talking next week about what happens there.

[00:12:46] Megan Larkin: Yes, those are going to be monster hearings. I'm seeing 63 bills in the executive session in the Senate that contains the MSOC and special education Big 3.

[00:13:02] Christie Robertson: And exec is funny because they do a very brief briefing on each bill to just remind themselves what they're voting on. And then they'll brief each amendment or substitution. And then they go into their separate Democratic and Republican caucuses offscreen. And then they come back and vote on each amendment and substitution and then the bill.

So it can go extremely fast if there haven't been a lot of amendments and substitutions, and everybody knows where they stand, and nobody feels like they need to make a speech about it. 

Or it can take a really long time. Like sometimes the party that knows that they're not going to succeed will have a whole bunch of amendments, and they'll give a speech about each one. And then they'll say, “I would have voted for the bill if you had adopted my amendments, but you didn't, and so I'm going to vote against it.” So that can take a pretty long time.

[00:13:56] Megan Larkin: Yeah. It'll be interesting to see what happens with these bills, with, like, how on-the-same-page everyone is on MSOC and special education. So here's hoping.

NTIB

[00:14:11] Christie Robertson: All right, so as far as we know, all of our Big 3 bills need to be exec’d out of the fiscal committees by Friday. But there's this weird exception that's called NTIB – “necessary to implement the budget”, which we mentioned in our last episode.

[00:14:31] Megan Larkin: Yeah. I've seen that more commonly applied to things like revenue bills, but it's a pretty liberally applied thing if they want to resurrect a bill. Because you can make an argument that a lot of different things are necessary to implement the budget. 

So all in all, I would just feel a lot more comfortable if all of the Big 3 pills were out of committee and we didn't have to go that route. Just seems very unpredictable.

Next up: Floor action

[00:12:45] Christie Robertson: So what is next for bills? Let's look at our cutoff calendar again. The fiscal cutoff is this Friday, so what will we be talking about next week?

[00:15:00] Megan Larkin: We are likely going to be talking about floor action. The House and the Senate chambers, each body individually, holds lengthy floor sessions, along with closed door caucus meetings, to move bills out of their house of origin. So after this fiscal cutoff, the next deadline that we are going to want to look at is on March 12th. Because all bills must be out of their house of origin by 5 p. m. on March 12th. 

[00:15:45] Christie Robertson: And to even get to that floor debate and vote, they have to get past these strange committees called Rules. There's a House Rules and a Senate Rules. 

[00:15:56] Megan Larkin: Yes, next week I'm sure we'll talk about how Rules work. because that's a whole thing. I think it's useful perhaps to think of them as a gatekeeper of sorts, where leadership exercises control over what bills that they want to focus on. It's another way of culling down the 1800 bills to a more manageable number.

[00:16:20] Christie Robertson: Yes, everything's crowding at the gate and there's a little narrow passageway at every Rules meeting, where a few bills get through. And we'll talk about that next week.

[00:16:29] Megan Larkin: Yes, we'll talk about Rules, floor action, both very exciting topics.

[00:16:33] Christie Robertson: That's week seven of the Big 3 briefing. 

[00:16:39] Megan Larkin: You can find show notes and transcripts at rainydayrecess.org. 

[00:16:43] Christie Robertson: And please let us know any thoughts or questions you have about the legislature by emailing us at hello@rainydayrecess.org.

Stay curious, stay cozy, and join us next time on Rainy Day Recess.