Legislature(2017 - 2018)BUTROVICH 205
01/17/2018 08:00 AM Senate EDUCATION
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| SB131 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| *+ | SB 131 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
SB 131-EDUCATION FUNDING
8:00:34 AM
CHAIR STEVENS announced the consideration of SB 131 and added
that the bill avoids pink-slipping teachers. [SB 131, version
30-LS1106\A, was before the committee.]
8:01:10 AM
TIM LAMKIN, Staff, Senator Gary Stevens, Alaska State
Legislature, presented SB 131 on behalf of the sponsor.
MR. LAMKIN said this bill is about early funding for the
foundation formula as detailed in AS 14.17. One of the
challenges faced by many districts is that they must submit
their budgets to their local municipalities by May 1. It can be
problematic because many times the state budget is not passed by
that time. So, the purpose of this bill is to allow for better
budget planning. There may be a question of whether that funding
is enough on April 1, but probably many districts would
appreciate knowing what the amount is, whatever it is, by April
1. At its core the bill is about the pink-slip issue.
8:02:24 AM
SENATOR BEGICH asked if a bill like this been proposed before
and what its progress was.
8:02:44 AM
MR. LAMKIN said yes, a similar bill was introduced by Senator
Stevens in 2003. At that time, the biggest pushback was that if
the budget process went further into the calendar year,
districts would have more negotiating power to secure more
funds. That was largely contingent on the fact that the state
had a healthy Constitutional Budget Reserve (CBR) and now that
the CBR is substantially diminished, that argument may no longer
be as potent.
CHAIR STEVENS added districts objected in the past, because then
they thought the longer they waited, the more funds they could
get. He said he thought that is not the case presently and he
wanted to hear about that from the districts.
8:04:03 AM
HEIDI TESHNER, Director, Administrative Services, Department of
Education and Early Development (DEED), answered questions
related to SB 131. She said DEED supports districts knowing
their foundation funding early so that they can avoid delivering
unnecessary pink-slips and will know that they have enough funds
to open at the start of the school year.
8:04:46 AM
CHAIR STEVENS asked for the timeline for sending out pink-slips.
8:04:55 AM
MS. TESHNER deferred to Ms. Herman about the timeline, but said
since foundation funding is a $1.2-billion program, districts
want to know what funds will be available to them.
8:05:36 AM
CHAIR STEVENS asked Ms. Herman to explain what happened when
districts did not have a budget by a certain time.
8:06:00 AM
MARCY HERMAN, Legislative Liaison, Department of Education and
Early Development (DEED), answered questions related to SB 131.
She said previously, districts had to notify teachers in March
that they might lose their jobs for the next school year. Two or
three sessions ago, the notification deadline was changed to May
15. Since the 90-day session ends mid-April, a May 15 deadline
would prevent unnecessary layoff notices. However, since the
legislature has remained in session more than 90 days the past
few years, districts have been in a tough spot regarding layoff
notifications.
8:07:02 AM
SENATOR COGHILL said the governor has a certain amount of time
to amend his budget, so the budgeting process can extend into
March. This would only give the legislature 15 days for debate.
He questioned whether April 1 should be the date because of the
compressed timeline.
8:08:01 AM
SENATOR BEGICH asked if DEED would have the capacity to deal
with the potential 15-day timeline.
8:08:40 AM
SENATOR COGHILL said that is part of the equation, but 60 other
people would have to be part of that equation.
8:08:51 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said the date of April 1 was a starting point that
could be changed.
SENATOR HUGHES joined via teleconference.
8:09:22 AM
MS. TESHNER said DEED does have the capacity to do this because
the projections come in early November and DEED can do reports
about projections for the following fiscal year.
8:09:48 AM
SENATOR GIESSEL said SB 131 deals with appropriations, but since
the bill was in the Education Committee, she wanted to bring the
discussion back to a more foundational, basic level. She asked
what is it that the state is funding. This summer, Commissioner
Michael Johnson of DEED put together the Education Challenge
that created numerous recommendations for transformation of how
the state educates students. She said the bill is about when
funding for education is available, but equally critical is to
address what the state is funding. She would like to hear from
the commissioner about what he has gleaned from the Education
Challenge and how he plans to transform the product they are
asked to appropriate money for.
8:11:18 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said that was a good point.
8:11:27 AM
MS. HERMAN said she formally requested that a joint House and
Senate Education Committee hearing be held with the Alaska State
Board of Education January 29 about how DEED is moving forward
with the Alaska's Education Challenge.
8:12:27 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said he has talked to the House Education Chair
about a joint hearing.
8:13:23 AM
NORM WOOTEN, Executive Director, Association of Alaska School
Boards (AASB), testified in support of SB 131. He said AASB has
several resolutions that support the elements of SB 131. A major
concern of many school districts is the ability to recruit and
retain teachers and administrators. Because districts cannot
pass an unbalanced budget, many times they are forced to issue
layoff notices. He said this makes it difficult to recruit and
retain teachers and administrators.
8:16:23 AM
LISA SKILES PARADY, Ph.D., Executive Director, Alaska Council of
School Administrators, testified in support of SB 131. She noted
that SB 131 is concise but will have a huge positive impact on
school districts. The 2018 joint position statements that she
presented to the committee represent a consensus from Alaska
administrators. The first sentence states that the State of
Alaska must provide timely, reliable, and predictable revenue
for funds. The timing is particularly important. State law
requires that tenured teachers receive layoff notices by May 15
and nontenured by the last day of school. She said recruiting
and retaining qualified educators is a bigger challenge than
ever before in the history of Alaska, at a time when the State
of Alaska is experiencing incredibly high turnover rates at
every level. She said if districts cannot issue contracts the
state's qualified educators go elsewhere. Her organization sees
the bill as accomplishing two straightforward tasks, separating
education to its own appropriations bill and requiring it to be
passed by April 1. This would address the issue of premature
pink-slips, something districts have experienced for the last
three years.
8:19:36 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said he was president of his local school board in
the 80s when the budget was cut in half. Many teachers who were
pink-slipped found jobs in other states. He said pink-slipping
and then hiring people back doesn't retain all the people who
received pink-slips.
8:20:14 AM
SENATOR GIESSEL asked if other states are having difficulties
retaining teachers.
8:20:34 AM
DR. PARADY said absolutely, yes. There is a national educator
shortage of superintendents and principals, but most
prominently, teachers, which is very hard for Alaska, because
Alaska historically recruits from the lower 48. But educators
can get jobs almost anywhere in the lower 48 at this point.
8:21:01 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said in the 70s and 80s people came because of the
wonderful retirement system, but now it's a portable system.
People can take the money and leave the state readily.
8:21:21 AM
DR. PARADY replied that Alaska is less competitive than it has
been historically and, in addition, fewer people are going into
education.
8:21:41 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said he would like to know whether the quality of
hired teachers has been reduced, whether there are fewer
qualified teachers, and whether the state should change its
requirements.
8:22:03 AM
SENATOR BEGICH asked if Dr. Parady had analyzed Alaska's
competitiveness with other states.
8:22:24 AM
DR. PARADY said her organization has been working with Northwest
Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) to do that. It is also
working with DEED to get more precise numbers about Alaska's
educator shortage. She would like to present those numbers in a
joint education session.
8:23:56 AM
CHAIR STEVENS responded that a joint session was a good idea.
8:24:11 AM
SENATOR GIESSEL said that when she worked in very rural Alaskan
schools, she would often encounter very young, new teachers,
eager to start the school year, and when she came back a few
months later they would be gone. "The cultural shock was so
much, the environment, just the light itself, far above the
Arctic Circle, such a factor," she said. While the retirement
system has changed, these elements haven't changed. She asked if
the state is attempting to hire so many brand-new teachers who
aren't ready to be out on their own in a challenging
environment.
8:25:21 AM
DR. PARADY said to be quite candid, school districts are
struggling to hire, period. The majority have gone the entire
year without being fully staffed. In many cases they are trying
to balance paraeducators and substitutes to cover courses.
Recently, working with DEED and the University of Alaska (UA),
they looked at school district vacancies for special education.
Before Christmas, Alaska lacked almost 100 special education
teachers across the state.
8:26:54 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said the bill is just the tip of the iceberg and
exposes enormous problems across the state in education K-12.
8:27:40 AM
SENATOR BEGICH said that teacher retention grants that were part
of the Moore [vs. State of Alaska] lawsuit were being evaluated.
He wondered if DEED could present whether there was an increase
in teacher retention because of those efforts.
8:28:28 AM
CHAIR STEVENS asked that DEED plan to present on that issue.
8:28:54 AM
DAVE JONES, Assistant Superintendent, Kenai Peninsula Borough
School District, testified in support of SB 131. He said
districts need funding certainty to move forward with staffing
decisions and contract commitments. He said he didn't see any
consequence in the bill for missing the deadline. He suggested
that perhaps it should be flat funding, so districts could make
staffing decisions.
CHAIR STEVENS asked Mr. Jones to describe his experience at job
fairs and the impact that pink-slipping may have on his hires.
8:31:17 AM
MR. JONES said many teachers that his district wants to retain
have young children and they cannot feed a family on a promise
that they probably will get a contract after receiving a pink-
slip. By the time his district can issue contracts they have
moved on to another district or state. He also said the quality
of the candidate pool is so much higher in April than July or
August.
8:33:29 AM
SENATOR HUGHES said this has been an issue for many years. She
wondered what reception SB 131 would receive in Senate Finance
because education funding is a huge part of the overall budget.
She asked what if districts always worked with the previous
year's funding, so their budget deadlines had nothing to do with
the current budget being debated by the legislature.
8:36:00 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said SB 131 was one solution out of many for this
issue.
8:36:21 AM
MR. JONES said there are many alternatives to solve this
problem. The fiscal year starts in July and ends in June, but
the revenue source is not solidified until the 20-day count in
October ends. If funding were based on the student enrollment
the previous year, the district would know its budget for the
next school year in March or April. He said this is what Wyoming
does. Wyoming does not penalize for decreases in enrollment, but
districts can get more money for increases of more than 10
percent.
8:38:23 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said the foundation formula included more than
teachers. It included transportation, for example. He asked if
the foundation formula could be divided up so at least the
teacher element could be known.
8:38:57 AM
MR. JONES said that would be difficult.
8:39:41 AM
SENATOR HUGHES asked if districts could change the fiscal year.
8:40:50 AM
MR. JONES said the legislature would have to change that. He was
not sure if changing the fiscal year would solve the problem if
it started before the legislature passed a budget.
8:41:21 AM
SENATOR HUGHES clarified that she meant that districts would
already have their appropriations. She wondered about other
options if Finance members thought it might be too difficult to
address education funding separately from the rest of state
budget.
8:42:40 AM
CHAIR STEVENS said all those issues would be discussed and
everything was on the table. He noted that education is a very
important discussion and not easy to solve.
8:43:37 AM
MARK MILLER, Ph.D., Superintendent, Juneau School District,
testified in support of SB 131. He said SB 131 is needed to
prevent unnecessary layoff notices and maintain consistent staff
to address the points in the Alaska Education Challenge. Because
tenured teachers cannot be laid off without a three percent
reduction in the budget, he had to make one of the most
difficult choices of his career last May when the legislature
was discussing a five percent reduction to the Base Student
Allocation. He had to decide whether to pink-slip all nontenured
teachers before the end of school. He didn't issue layoff
notices to any teacher, but it was risky. He estimated that
Juneau's end fund balance this year would be around $400,000,
what it cost to run the district for one day. He said, "We have
one school day worth of money between us being solvent and us
not being able to write checks to cover our debts."
8:48:14 AM
CHAIR STEVENS asked Dr. Miller whether he had any reflections on
the right date.
8:48:31 AM
DR. MILLER said the earlier the better, but by the first of May
at the latest because of the rules for laying off tenured
teachers.
8:49:09 AM
SENATOR GIESSEL asked for an update on the situation with
Juneau's second high school regarding low enrollment numbers and
the possibility of consolidation.
8:49:31 AM
DR. MILLER said a consultant just concluded that consolidating
both schools did not make sense. The brand new high school does
not have the capacity to hold all students and putting all the
students in an old building, away from where 70% of the students
live, does not save money. Trying to restructure the entire
district to close one old building does not save money because
transportation costs go up. Trying to solve one problem often
creates another.
CHAIR STEVENS held the bill in committee.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| SB131_EarlyEdFunding_BillText_VersionA.PDF |
SEDC 1/17/2018 8:00:00 AM |
SB 131 |
| SB131_EarlyEdFunding_SponsorStatement_VersionA.pdf |
SEDC 1/17/2018 8:00:00 AM |
SB 131 |
| SB131_EarlyEdFunding_Sectional_VersionA.pdf |
SEDC 1/17/2018 8:00:00 AM |
SB 131 |
| SB131_EarlyEdFunding_FN1_Foundation.pdf |
SEDC 1/17/2018 8:00:00 AM |
SB 131 |
| SB131_EarlyEdFunding_FN2_PEF.pdf |
SEDC 1/17/2018 8:00:00 AM |
SB 131 |