Source 1: Shift the $250 million coming in from the tabacco industry due to Gregoire's successful extortion attempt to the General Fund.

Source 2: Reduce the teacher's pay raise ($300 million or so based on their greater than 3% pay raise that all other state employees received) to the same amount everyone else got.

Non-prorated amount of revenue recovered over the biennium?

I do believe it equals $1.1 billion. Use the reserve for any shortfall the happens after that, until the voter-approval system comes on line.

This isn't looking to particularly difficult, people.

Westin

Who still believes that, version 1.1, wherein budget managers could keep a percentage of whatever savings they find would be the fastest way to go.

-- Westin (86se4sp@my-deja.com), October 23, 1999

Answers

Westin

The better answer I believe, is Zero-based budgeting rather than Line- item budgeting or some variation of it

The key element in ZBB is that ALL programs have to be re-evaluated each budget cycle in competition with all other budget items.

The case now is that many redundant or obselete programs are continually refunded simply through inertia---there is no requirement to re justify them.

The fact is that once a bureaucratic entity(see cancer) has been established,it is almost never subject to a later rigorous scrutiny during the budget process.

Of course,with the passage of 695 and the attendant requirement to vote on tax increases, there will be an attendant pressure on agencies with redundant and overlapping/obsolete programs to weed them out .

Another variation of this approach is "sunset" provisions in most laws that will force a rejustification of programs or they go out of existance.These rejustifications must be in competition with ALL other programs. This will force to Pols to continually reexamine and reproiritize budgets

Faced with this scrutiny during the rejustifying process will cause the end of a lot of wasteful programs benefiting a small special interest group. What pol,under public (journaistic) scrutiny will vote to continue spending tax money on pornagraphic graffiti over a senior citizen meals on wheels program for instance?

There could be far more beneficial aspects to 695 that haven't been talked about.

"You can lead a liberal to logic,but you can't make them think."

Ricardo

-- Ricardo (ricardoxxx@home.com), October 23, 1999.

Westin:

And you wonder why the teachers union and the education establishment is concerned about 695. They get no MVET now, but you see that as a source to make up for the loss of MVET. As I have said several times, the initiative gives no direction on programs and priorities. No "essential" service is safe from cuts. If it passes, some of the sky really is falling. We just don't know whose programs it will land on.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), October 23, 1999.

Westin

I forgot to mention that I agree with you re: reducing the teacher pay raise to what all other employees get.--still more than the CPI increase..

I imagine that someone will try to claim that less of an INCREASE is actually a cut.

This is the Clinton legacy. They lie even when the truth might serve them better.

"Aliberal believes someone can give you self esteem rather than earning it."

Ricardo

-- Ricardo (ricardoxxx@home.com), October 23, 1999.

Ricardo:

Less of an increase is a cut. See? You were right about something anyway.

When it comes to salary, a total compensation increase that is exactly the CPI is not an increase in the buying power or living conditions of the employee. It lets them buy what they bought last year. That said, the CPI includes medical and dental costs, which may be provided for in benefits rather than salary, and employees don't re-negotiate the purchase of a home every year so that part may be fixed for most individuals; but the idea is that a CPI adjustment just keeps up with inflation.

I think that the teachers raise was the result of several years of less than CPI increases. If that is the case, then less of an increase is a cut - - of the pay of teachers, as measured in constant value dollars.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), October 23, 1999.

P.S. I am not a big fan of public employee unions. See my post in "More power to..."

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), October 23, 1999.

db

No... i don't wonder why they are concerned, for I believe their concern, as amply demonstrated by their dispicable conduct during the last legislative session, begins and ends with their pay check.

As I stated, they are state employees... state employees who held a gun to the head of the legislature and parents across this state; who extorted far more then they are worth from the taxpayers and who, at base, are no more nor less employees of the state then any of the rest of us.

They received a pay raise that they were no mopre entitled to then any of the rest of us, and I see it as a matter of fundamanetal fairness that one of the places we can find replacement revenue is to roll that pay raise back to what everyone else received. One can hardly argue that the teacher's pay raise represents an "essential service."

Exclusive of the fact that the entire time they were whining, the teachers failed to mention any of their step increases against their determined efforts to lie about how much value their pay had lost over the years; issues of CPI were no less nor no greater for any other public employee.

I am looking for ways to find the revenue. Rolling back the pay raise to the same that everyone else got would be a giant step towards finding it, teacher's pay (which, I would assume, they all knew about before they agreed to come to work as teachers) is a damned fine place to start.

If teachers are "concerned" about that, I have one word for them: tough.

Westin

"Many are called, but some are busy."

A.G. Bell

-- Westin (86se4sp@my-deja.com), October 23, 1999.

Westin:

You hit the real issue toward the end. Yes, they knew what the salary was when they took the job. If their total compensation has not kept up with inflation, they would now be paid less. The steps have nothing to do with it. When they agreed to take the job, it was with the understanding that experience is worth something specific.

I don't know any of the details of the teacher pay rates, so someone who knows can address that. What they are worth is somewhat subjective. How much does a competent employee with a Masters Degree earn in private industry? Teachers are not state employees. They are local school district employees.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), October 24, 1999.