[Vision2020] Fwd: The Past Week in the Legislature
bill london
london@moscow.com
Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:37:31 -0800
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------080605010302010609000103
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Shirley Ringo:
First, many thanks for sending your news to V2020.
Second, I understood that the Washington House just decided to scrap the
rule that required a 60% vote for approving school bonds. (In
Washington now, more than 60% of the voters--not a majority of 50%--must
approve bonds). That seems like simple democratic decision-making to
me. Why should 40% of the voters make the decision? What about Idaho?
In Idaho, as I understand it, bonds require a 67% approval. That number
is so hard to achieve, since any sizable minority can kill a bond levy.
Could that change in Idaho? Would you support a change lowering the
required approval to even 60%?
BL
RingoShirl@aol.com wrote:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> The Past Week in the Legislature
> From:
> "Shirley Ringo" <sringo@house.state.id.us>
> Date:
> Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:38:11 -0700
> To:
> <RingoShirl@aol.com>
>
>
> With one week of the legislative session behind us, money issues are
> huge. I think our handling of these issues gives a big glimpse of our
> values. A person can get a notion of how citizens and legislators
> care for people, the importance attached to education, whether or not
> people are entitled to healthcare, etc.
>
> I am on the Commerce and Human Resources Committee, which deals with
> public employees pay and benefits. We met January 8 and 9 to hear
> testimony and begin discussion of these issues. Policy is that state
> employee pay should reflect the market value of such services. We are
> currently more than 14% behind on that level. Also, all raises are
> based upon merit. Most public employees received their last raise in
> 2001. Last year, the state funded some, but not all, increases in
> health insurance benefits.
>
> Most of the testimony was on two levels. First, young people who come
> to work as state employees in Idaho will leave for higher pay. We
> spend money giving people training, only to lose them to higher paying
> jobs. We lose university professors who take millions of research
> dollars with them. Second, there are many state employees who must
> take a second job, or live on food stamps. Much of the testimony from
> them was heart-breaking. The governor's proposed budget will help
> with benefits and give about a 2% raise. Is it acceptable to avoid
> raising additional revenue, and to balance our budget by holding down pay?
>
> The education budget is also sparse. There is not enough for higher
> education, particularly in view of past hold backs. The problem is
> compounded by insufficient funds for employee pay. For public
> schools, there is essentially nothing for increasing pay. There is
> $10,000,000 in "discretionary" money, that could be used for raises.
> It will be a hard call whether or not to build this into local salary
> schedules, which must be on-going. The technology money is $5,000,000
> below that requested by Marilyn Howard. Most school districts hire a
> technology specialist, and may have to tap into the "discretionary"
> salary money to afford this person. The support for public education
> this year is less than that for last year, if the governor's plan is
> adopted.
>
> The school facility issue is still not resolved. I will be one of the
> sponsors of legislation to eliminate the law passed last session that
> resulted in the state suing its districts. I find that law more than
> a little embarrassing. I'm working to propose a more positive
> solution to the school facilities problem.
>
> The governor has recommended that the Whitepine district receive
> $377,000 to address school building issues. Whitepine's patrons
> completed steps to receive this money the same year as Troy High
> School received its assistance, but the fund had been depleted. We
> will really appreciate seeing Whitepine receive these funds.
>
> The State Board has approved the ABCTE (American Board for
> Certification of Teacher Excellence) test, which will offer teacher
> certification to certain people who "pass" the test. Research shows
> that the most important factor in successful education is the
> teacher. The only other US state to adopt this test is Pennsylvania,
> where legislators have or will challenge it.
>
> Among my priorities for this session are: tax fairness, better pay for
> state employees, school facilities issues, University of Idaho
> issues, and a number of concerns raised by individuals from our
> district. If there is some way I can help any of you, my e-mail at
> the statehouse is: sringo@house.state.id.us
> <mailto:sringo@house.state.id.us>. My home phone is 883-1005, and I
> periodically listen to messages.
>
>
>
>
--------------080605010302010609000103
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title></title>
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">
Shirley Ringo:<br>
First, many thanks for sending your news to V2020.<br>
Second, I understood that the Washington House just decided to scrap
the rule that required a 60% vote for approving school bonds. (In
Washington now, more than 60% of the voters--not a majority of
50%--must approve bonds). That seems like simple democratic
decision-making to me. Why should 40% of the voters make the
decision? What about Idaho? In Idaho, as I understand it, bonds
require a 67% approval. That number is so hard to achieve, since any
sizable minority can kill a bond levy. Could that change in Idaho?
Would you support a change lowering the required approval to even 60%?<br>
BL<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:RingoShirl@aol.com">RingoShirl@aol.com</a> wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid13EC013B.2E396540.0C9FA8E5@aol.com"><br>
<hr width="90%" size="4"><br>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%"
class="header-part1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<div class="headerdisplayname" style="display: inline;">Subject:
</div>
The Past Week in the Legislature</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div class="headerdisplayname" style="display: inline;">From: </div>
"Shirley Ringo" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:sringo@house.state.id.us"><sringo@house.state.id.us></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div class="headerdisplayname" style="display: inline;">Date: </div>
Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:38:11 -0700</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div class="headerdisplayname" style="display: inline;">To: </div>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:RingoShirl@aol.com"><RingoShirl@aol.com></a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; ">
<meta content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1264" name="GENERATOR">
<div>With one week of the legislative session behind us, money issues
are huge. I think our handling of these issues gives a big glimpse of
our values. A person can get a notion of how citizens and legislators
care for people, the importance attached to education, whether or not
people are entitled to healthcare, etc. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>I am on the Commerce and Human Resources Committee, which deals
with public employees pay and benefits. We met January 8 and 9 to hear
testimony and begin discussion of these issues. Policy is that state
employee pay should reflect the market value of such services. We are
currently more than 14% behind on that level. Also, all raises are
based upon merit. Most public employees received their last raise in
2001. Last year, the state funded some, but not all, increases in
health insurance benefits.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Most of the testimony was on two levels. First, young people
who come to work as state employees in Idaho will leave for higher
pay. We spend money giving people training, only to lose them to
higher paying jobs. We lose university professors who take millions of
research dollars with them. Second, there are many state employees who
must take a second job, or live on food stamps. Much of the testimony
from them was heart-breaking. The governor’s proposed budget will help
with benefits and give about a 2% raise. Is it acceptable to avoid
raising additional revenue, and to balance our budget by holding down
pay?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The education budget is also sparse. There is not enough for
higher education, particularly in view of past hold backs. The problem
is compounded by insufficient funds for employee pay. For public
schools, there is essentially nothing for increasing pay. There is
$10,000,000 in “discretionary” money, that could be used for raises.
It will be a hard call whether or not to build this into local salary
schedules, which must be on-going. The technology money is $5,000,000
below that requested by Marilyn Howard. Most school districts hire a
technology specialist, and may have to tap into the “discretionary”
salary money to afford this person. The support for public education
this year is less than that for last year, if the governor’s plan is
adopted.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The school facility issue is still not resolved. I will be one
of the sponsors of legislation to eliminate the law passed last session
that resulted in the state suing its districts. I find that law more
than a little embarrassing. I’m working to propose a more positive
solution to the school facilities problem.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The governor has recommended that the Whitepine district receive
$377,000 to address school building issues. Whitepine’s patrons
completed steps to receive this money the same year as Troy High School
received its assistance, but the fund had been depleted. We will
really appreciate seeing Whitepine receive these funds.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The State Board has approved the ABCTE (American Board for
Certification of Teacher Excellence) test, which will offer teacher
certification to certain people who “pass” the test. Research shows
that the most important factor in successful education is the
teacher. The only other US state to adopt this test is Pennsylvania,
where legislators have or will challenge it. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Among my priorities for this session are: tax fairness, better
pay for state employees, school facilities issues, University of Idaho
issues, and a number of concerns raised by individuals from our
district. If there is some way I can help any of you, my e-mail at the
statehouse is: <a href="mailto:sringo@house.state.id.us">sringo@house.state.id.us</a>.
My home phone is 883-1005, and I periodically listen to messages.</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>
--------------080605010302010609000103--