At noon
today the Virginia House of Delegates the Virginia Senate gaveled in the 2017
session. The first day is filled with ceremonial votes and introductions.
Tonight at 7pm Governor Terry McAuliffe will deliver his State of the
Commonwealth address. I certainly anticipate some updates on revenues and
information on his plan to balance the budget.
One thing
you will likely hear the Governor say is that K-12 was “held harmless” in the
most recent cuts. Let’s put that in some perspective.
Yes, Direct
Aid to K-12 has not been subject to the 5% to 7.5% cuts other departments were
required to make. But the 2% salary increase that was included in the first
year of the budget was tied to the state meeting the revenue forecast. When VA
fell short, K-12 lost $134.4 million dollars in state funds to support those
increases. The Governor has proposed state support for a 1.5% one-time “bonus”
for SOQ positons, but there is no language in the budget that localities must
implement this plan, and we know that localities would have to foot the bill
for the local share of this bonus and cover the full amount for non-SOQ
positions. K-12 also saw just over $102 million in losses from the General Fund
that was supplanted with the same amount from Non-General Fund revenues
(Lottery Funds and Literary Funds). And losses in average daily membership came
to another drop in state funding of $85 million. So, yes, Direct Aid was held
harmless, but don’t be fooled. Don’t get me wrong, we are certainly grateful to
the Governor and his efforts to find additional money to fill the holes in the
K-12 budget, but “harmless” these reductions are not.
Today in
House Appropriations we got our first real senses of the path the House may
take in their budget. The House Appropriations Committee received a
presentation on the Governor’s proposed budget amendments. We have been hearing
rumors that House Republicans were trying to restore the 2% salary increase for
teachers, but there was some potential, and concerning, writing on the wall. Delegate
Chris Jones, Chair of House Appropriations, asked what can only be considered a
rhetorical question of his staff during the presentation. Delegate Jones asked
if most school divisions gave the 2% raise anyway, and he got the answer he was
looking for- YES. Most localities in VA were able to fully fund the salary
increase even when the state failed to deliver on their share. Delegate Jones
went on to ask, “Did the localities have enough time to rescind the raises once
they heard the state would fall short in revenue forecasts?” Answer from House
Appropriations staff, “Yes.”
I guess
Delegate Jones wanted the packed room to know that teachers in many divisions
got raises in spite of the state. Of course to make that happen, localities had
to cut in other areas. Giving a teacher a salary increase and then saying,
“Never mind, we take it back” is bad business and those divisions that COULD
afford the raise locally, DID. But we know our most in-need localities, the
ones who CAN’T, didn’t, and those teachers had the rug swiped out from under
them. Not sure Delegate Jones’ comments are good supporting evidence that the House
Republicans will be leading a charge to prioritize salary increases. We will no
more in the next few days as budget amendments from members of the General
Assembly are filed. Let’s hope they aren’t all going to keep up with the Jones.
