Preparing to set the public school budget…

As JFAC prepares to set the public school budget this morning, intent language that was widely distributed on Friday - and posted on this blog - essentially hasn’t changed, budget analysts told the joint committee members. “Most of it is the same - we received comments, clarified things,” said analyst Paul Headlee. “Essentially these are the same sections, just some edits.”

The one big change is that there is no section to change the early retirement program. Stakeholders had agreed on a tentative plan to suspend it for one year, in return for changing the PERSI rule of 90 to a rule of 85 for one year, allowing some educators to retire earlier. “We can’t figure out how to make it work, and we can’t figure out how to keep it from being politicized given the other actions,” Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, told JFAC at its 7 a.m. workshop meeting today. “So we reversed course.” That plan has now been dropped, and no change is proposed to early retirement incentives in the co-chairs’ proposed motion.

There is a competing motion from Rep. Cliff Bayer, R-Boise, that seeks to keep the minimum teacher salary at $30,000; it’s now $30,915. The co-chairs’ proposed motion sets it at $29,655. Bayer’s change would have a ripple effect throughout the budget, increasing base salary reductions for teachers from 4 percent to 4.37 percent. Both proposals call for base salary reductions for classified staff of 4 percent, for administrators of 6.5 percent, and freezing movement on the salary grid that normally would give teachers and administrators raises for additional experience or education, to save $10.13 million next year. Bayer told JFAC members he may also propose dipping into discretionary funding for school districts to cover early retirement incentive costs upfront, rather than allow a portion to come out of reserves as would automatically happen otherwise.

The joint committee this morning will set budgets for the Department of Lands, the DEQ, Vocational Rehabilitation, the Commission for the Blind & Visually Impaired and the Division of Veterans Services before it moves on to public schools.