Legislature Ends
The
legislature ended Saturday with both houses nearly coming to a halt as
various members talked the clock down. In the Senate, Senators
Ryan and
Adair filibustered and prevented the passage of the capital outlay
bill in an apparent attempt to force floor leader Michael Sanchez to hear
House Bill 21, the Governor's bill to force schools to retain 3rd
graders who were not at reading proficiency. The extortion attempt
didn't work and the Senate spent its last two hours listening to inane
chatter. Neither the retention bill nor the capital outlay bill made it to
a vote.
On the House side of the Capitol a
prolonged debate between Representatives
Thomas Garcia and
Patty Lundstrom used
up a great deal of the morning and kept many bills from being heard,
including the Governor's proposed revamp of teacher evaluation,
Senate Bill 502.
Even though greatly amended, the measure
still had many problematic features. Governor Martinez has
threatened to place some of her education reform plans on the agenda when
the legislature is called to a special redistricting session later in the
year, stay tuned.
Budget Bill Goes to Governor-Retirement
Swap Included
The House voted late
Wednesday to go along with minor Senate amendments to
House Bill 2 bill and sent it to the governor on a party-line vote of
36-32, with all Republicans present opposing the measure.
The House gave final approval Thursday to
Substitute for HBs 607 and 622,
also part of the budget package. It caps the amount of rebates to film
production companies at $50 million a year. It could free up
an estimated $18 million next year. The House sent that measure to the
governor on a vote of 51-17.
On Thursday morning,
a combination of progressive Democrats and Republicans in the House rejected Senate changes to HB 628
aimed at freeing up another $110 million to help balance the budget by
continuing the 1.5% retirement swap and adding another 1.75% swap on top
of the earlier amount. After Republican Governor Martinez indicated
through a spokesperson that she wanted the retirement swap to be
permanent, the House Democrats decided not to risk a conference committee
that could have moved toward the permanent swap and moved to reconsider
the concurrence vote. They voted to reconsider and then to concur
with the Senate amendments. While we liked keeping this bill in
limbo to prevent its ultimate passage, the chance that the swap could be
made permanent was too big to take; we supported the reconsideration
even though the vote effectively passed the retirement swap.
HB 628,
was signed by the Governor, and once again budgets were balanced onthe
backs of school employees.
The final budget package is
made up of House
Bill 2, the General Appropriations Act,
House Taxation and Revenue Committee
Substitute for HBs 607 and 622,
and
HB 628. Since all these measures passed with less than 72 hours
to go in the session, the Governor will have until April 8 to make final
decisions on signing or vetoing them.
The budget as finally
passed adds $25 million that was not in the original House Appropriations and Finance Committee (HAFC) proposal,
most from the film credits bill. Of
this $25, $7.5 million was added to school public school
support the rest of the $25 million freed from the film credit
compromise goes to Medicaid, corrections, various other social
services, and public safety. The Senate added language to the
bill that makes this additional funding contingent on passage of
legislation like
HB
607,
the film credit reduction compromise. Before the cut from the
retirement swap, public school support is cut by about 1.5%, while the
rest of state government's cut is nearer 3%. The final version
of the budget cuts the equivalent of $15 million from the State
Equalization Guarantee and then created another $5 million dollar cut on
top of that to allow the Secretary of Education to impose "efficiencies."
One of the two
other pieces of the pieces that makes up this year's budget,
House Taxation and Revenue Committee
Substitute for HBs 607 and 622
was amended in the passed the
Senate Finance Committee to change the cap of film credits from $45
million to $50 million, but to remove the ability to carry over credits
from year to year, a major part of the compromise reached in the House after much, often acrimonious, debate. This
legislation now only adds about $18 million new dollars to revenues;
however, Finance Committee Chair
John Arthur Smith
stated that the other $7 million could be "easily" found.
The other piece of
the budget puzzle is HB 628, forcing public employees to pay a larger share of retirement
withholdings (see below) to save the state budget some $47 million
dollars on top of the 1.5% retirement swap passed two years ago.
HB 628, extends the 1.5% another year, but doesn't make it permanent.
HB 628
also passed the Senate early this morning. It creates a shell game of $27 million in
pension swaps for school employees (and $22 million for other public
employees) as proposed by the Legislative Finance Committee to increase
employees' share of retirement by 1.75%. The legislature pretends
that the School Equalization Guarantee has this money in it, then, in
another section of the budget reduces school appropriations by an amount
equal to that saved by the passage of this bill, thus passing the increase
passed on to employees. Without enabling legislation, this
this reduction won't happen.
HAFC Substitute for
HB 628 is the enabling legislation.
The bill also extends
the two-year 1.5 percent contribution shift implemented for FY10 and FY11
from the employer to the employee for those employees making more than
$20,000 another two years (FY12 and FY13).
It also makes a
one-year contribution shift of 1.75 percent from the employer rate to the
employee rate for those making more than $20,000 for FY12. This
changes the percentage of retirement withholdings for members of ERA and
their employers (as well as employees covered by the Public employees
Retirement Association). This legislation "swaps" an additional
1.75% of salary with the state to reduce their share of retirement
withholdings and increase yours. This swap is all about budget
balancing and does nothing to increase the solvency of the Educational
Retirement Fund. In fact, we think it harms the fund. Employee
dollars always add less stability to retirement than employer funds, since
employees who choose not to retire can remove those dollars from the fund.
HB 628 was amended in the
Senate Finance Committee on Saturday.
One
amendment requires an actuarial study by September
30, 2013, to analyze
whether the higher employee contribution rates and lower employer
contribution rates required statute have had or will have an adverse
actuarial effect on the retirement system in violation of Article 20,
Section 22 of the constitution of New Mexico (one of the contentions in
our and other public employees' s law suit against the increases filed two
years ago). If there is an adverse effect, the two retirement boards
will ask, but not necessarily get, a supplemental appropriation from the
second session of the fifty-first legislature in the amount that will
rectify the adverse actuarial effect. It also has an
amendment that
extends both swaps from July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013, if
the general fund increases by less than $100 million and the state fund
reserves drop below 5%.
Teacher Evaluation Bill Greatly Amended in the House Labor
Committee, Fails to Reach House Floor
Senate Bill 502
never made to a hearing on the House Floor as the clock wound down at noon
Saturday. It would have
revamped New Mexico's teacher evaluation.
Senate Bill 502 is Sponsored by
Senator Cynthia Nava.
. One
good point of the bill is it's requirement that evaluation systems be used
to make employment decisions; this would add protections to prevent
teacher terminations for reasons other than job related ones. This
bill has been introduced on behalf of the Governor and Secretary of
Education. They have been open to compromise and we have worked to make changes to the proposed legislation
that protect teacher due process and that guarantee both NEA-NM and AFT NM
places on the task force that will development the details of the new
evaluation system. Part of this development will be how to define
"student growth" as shown by the New Mexico standards-based assessment.
We certainly don't accept that a straight test score, without any
consideration of extenuating circumstances such as attendance and other
negative factors, can be used.
The
House
Labor Committee on Thursday make several positive amendments to the
bill,
including delaying its real effect for a full one and one half years.
They also refined what is meant by student growth; the amendments require
that a complete value-added system of measurement be in place before
student growth can be used to evaluate teachers. Other
amendments removed many references to termination of teachers who fail to
meet effectiveness standards.
Difference Versions of Governor's School Grading Bill
Pass Both Houses
We supported
amendments that were added to the
Senate (SB 427) and
House
(HB Bill 335)
versions of The
House version of the Governor's school grading bill,
, A-B-C-D-F SCHOOLS RATING SYSTEM,
sponsored for the
Governor by
Representative Dennis Roch and
Senator Vernon Asbill.
SB 427 passed the House and was signed by the Governor.
Funding Summary and Call for a Special Legislative Session
As a result of cuts
implemented in the 2010-2011 funding year, state funding of the School
Equalization Guarantee is now $106 million less than 2008, $213 million
lower than the original appropriation for 2008-2009, and $141 million
less than the solvency adjusted appropriation for 2008-2009! Add to that
number the fact that a 2008 legislative authorized and funded study had
determined that our schools were under funded by 15% - or roughly
$354million in that year’s real dollars.
Law makers refused to move any revenue increases for public schools out
of committee to the full body in either the House of Senate. The Senate
refused to move Senate Joint Resolution 10, which would have maintained
public education funding from the land grant permanent fund past its
scheduled sunset and have added funding for early childhood programs.
The House defeated House Joint Resolution 1, which would have simply
maintained the status quo on school funding from the permanent fund. Not
only were rich out-of-state corporations spared paying their fair share,
so were New Mexico’s own millionaires. A Governor, who during the
political campaign promised no funding cuts to public education, changed
her tune at the beginning of the legislative session and promised to
keep cuts away from the classroom. By the time she signed the
passionless general appropriation act, she (and the legislature) placed
the classroom, students, and teachers squarely in the bull’s eye of
targeted cuts. School employees had been the victims of another budget
balancing swap of retirement contributions, reducing salaries by another
1.75% and classroom spending had been cut another 1.5% on top of the
cuts described above.
After the session, things went from bad to worse when State Education
Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera announced that New Mexico's
K-12 system has 7,900 new funding units. There is no reason to point
fingers about why these new units weren’t apparent during the
legislative session. There is also no reason to pretend they don’t
really exist and can be audited away. They represent real funding needs
in our public schools. They represent growth that should have been
accounted for by the Governor and Legislature. New Mexico has a public
school budget already deeply cut; increasing the number of units means
each unit is worth less and responsible budget building becomes next to
impossible in our public school districts.
In an Albuquerque Journal Editorial on April 11, the writer stated, “In
2008 Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, helped craft a bill to simplify
the funding formula and curb any abuse of special education dollars. The
reform failed, mainly because the funding had a $354-million price tag.”
Although they were really calling for more accountability in counting
special education units, they acknowledged, albeit sideways, that
Representative Stewart’s reform efforts failed, not because they were
wrong, but, rather, because of the price tag. While keeping up their
performance mantra, the Journal acknowledged the funding problems by
stating, “New Mexico's education system is in a funding and performance
mess.” The performance issue is complex ; recent studies have indicated that a
child’s mother’s education level may be the single most salient factor
in student performance! So, on the student achievement front, we better
not think we have all or even very many of the answers.
When it comes to the “funding mess” issue, we know both the cause and the solution.
The cause is policy makers who work “with their mouths” for maintaining
classroom support, but fail to have any passion in setting priorities
for producing revenues and funding public education. The solution is a
change of heart in those policy makers or new policy makers. Elections
have consequences; November 2010 had dire consequences for public school
employees and the children we serve. It’s time those consequences
extended to those “sunshine soldiers” of November who lose their
memories in the cold winter of January legislative sessions. They and
the Governor have a chance to correct those mistakes. It is becoming
clear that the depths of the cuts and the harm they will do were not
clear as the legislature drew to a close.
We need more funding, not rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic;
the only way to increase funding is to call a special session of the
legislature and ask both lawmakers and the Governor to have a change of
heart and make our state’s children and
their public schools a real priority. We ask Governor Martinez to remember her promise
to protect classrooms from budget cuts and call that special session
before school year 2011-2012 is irreconcilability compromised. Governor
Martinez and the Legislature can have a second chance, but our state’s
students don’t get a “do-over” for an indifferently funded school year.
|
