Legislative Update

The legislative session ended on Sunday April 28th at midnight.  Hundreds of bills were considered this session as well as fixes for the budget issues that schools face.

School District Levies

The levy lid was raised from $1.50 per thousand to $2.50 per thousand of assessed value.  This would allow districts to collect more local funding than what was previously legislated – if they are able to pass their levies at the higher amount.  Districts that have already passed levies at the $1.50 per thousand rate would be eligible to run another levy to make up the difference.  Districts that have already passed levies for more than the $1.50 can now collect up to the $2.50 amount if their board approves it.

Approximately 2/3 of ESD districts are facing budget difficulties. This is one option that may provide some additional funding to alleviate budget deficits.

Special Education

Special education funding increased about $77 million this session.  This is still about $300 million short of fully funding special education and therefore still not adequate to fund this basic education service.

Hold Harmless

School districts that were going to receive less funding next year than they did this year also received what is called “hold harmless” funding.  ESD 112 played a big role in helping secure these funds.  Gavin Hottman led a statewide workgroup that developed the formulas while our communications staff helped to prepare the statewide informational campaign that made this funding possible.  It will provide an additional $58 million for our neediest school districts.

ESD Legislation

All ESDs received $140,000 towards funding a safety center at each ESD.  This past year, ESD 112 expanded our threat assessment program to include all six counties in our ESD.  We are the only ESD in the state providing coverage to all districts.  A one-time contribution from our own insurance pool helped us expand this service.  We will use the state funds to sustain our work in threat assessment for all districts as well as to provide us some seed funding for social emotional supports for students.

School Employees Benefits Board (SEBB)

HB 2140 passed in the 11th hour of the session and included the following legislation for ESDs.

  1. ESDs were exempted from the SEBB (state health benefit pool) for a period of four years.  As you are aware, ESD’s are not funded the same way as school districts; in fact, less than three percent of our annual revenue comes from state funds. Including ESDs in the SEB program would have crippling effects for ESDs and the districts they serve all across our state. School districts are set to receive 85 percent funding the SEB. In contrast, without the passage of HB 2140, ESDs would be funded for just 15 percent of their employees, resulting in devastating program impacts and a $1.2 million budget shortfall for ESD 112 alone. The ESDs were provided the exemption in order to allow time for the ESDs to evaluate revenue options to better align to the SEB requirements.  We are currently awaiting the Governor’s signature on this bill.
  2. The ESDs also received about $100,000 per year to support our STEM network administration in HB 2140.

Climate science and computer science funding was also included in the budget to continue the work we have started over the last few years.