Mike Salsbury/The Olympian
Rochester High School counselor Thorlea Kirtz talks with first-year teacher Justin Rotter on Monday at the school. Kirtz, president of the Rochester Education Association, said she is not surprised by an effort to eliminate the pay raises for teachers that voters approved through Initiative 732. "We are the biggest part of the budget, and there's no surprise here. It's not right, and I don't like it," she said.

Lawmaker may try to delay I-732

Sen. Swecker considers bill to freeze teacher pay increases

BRAD SHANNON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Tuesday, February 26, 2002

OLYMPIA -- In a move that could be politically explosive, a Thurston County senator has readied a bill that would delay cost-of-living raises for teachers to prevent deeper cuts to other state-paid programs.

Only half-joking, Sen. Dan Swecker was measuring the thickness of his political hide Monday as he mulled whether to formally introduce the bill. Gov. Gary Locke first suggested the idea last week, but Swecker has drawn up language to carry it out.

Delayed until 2005

The unnumbered bill would postpone the pay raises for K-12 school employees for three years -- in effect freezing the provisions of Initiative 732. In 2005, the bill would then guarantee yearly cost-of-living raises of equal size to teachers and all other state employees.

Voters approved I-732 overwhelmingly in November 2000, when the economy was still humming and the state had a budget surplus. Lawmakers now face a budget shortfall of more than $1.6 billion and are looking at potential across-the-board cuts, layoffs and reduced medical care for the poor.

"I'm worried about my state employees," said Swecker, a Rochester Republican. "One of the things I'm thinking about is whether we ought to be giving teachers 3.7 percent raises when we're cutting state jobs."

About $175 million dollars could be saved if I-732 raises are delayed and state worker pay also is frozen. The breakdown would be $83 million from a state-worker freeze and another $92 million if teachers' pay were frozen.

Locke opened the door to changes in I-732 last week when he announced a hiring freeze and suggested that state workers' pay also might have to be frozen to deal with the budget crisis.

"If such a bill is dropped, it will get a hearing," Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairwoman Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said of Swecker's proposal. She did not say if she favors it.

But House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, gave the idea little chance of clearing the House.

"I don't see us getting a two-thirds vote to change the teachers salaries even if most of us wanted (it)," he said. "I'm only interested in what is do-able ... and probable.''

Spokesmen for the state's largest teachers union, the 74,000-member Washington Education Association, immediately criticized the proposal.

"It would be a very bad idea," said WEA spokesman Rich Wood, noting that more than 60 percent of voters endorsed I-732. "The voters clearly understood the link between competitive teacher pay and the quality of education in our schools.''

Many legislators including Brown have talked about cutting state education funding, but they haven't endorsed tampering with any of the voter-approved initiatives. A two-thirds legislative vote is required to alter an initiative within the first two years after voter approval.

Still, budget writers like Brown have said all options are being considered.

To Brown, that means she is still considering a general tax increase, increases in specific taxes such as gaming, and eliminating tax exemptions.

Although Brown had hoped to make a revised budget proposal public this week, that's no longer certain as she tries to win support in the Senate Democratic Caucus for various options. So far, there's no consensus around a single plan.

"I said we can't fill it all with cuts," Brown said. "We're just educating, discussing and weighing all the options."

Swecker said his proposal has three parts:

-Delay the I-732 raises.

-Tie future raises to the so-called implicit price deflator, or IPD, which is lower than the Seattle-area Consumer Price Index that I-732 is based on.

-Tie state employees' raises in three years to whatever K-12 employees get.

He said he was "emboldened" to consider his proposal after seeing the Senate repeal the I-713 trapping ban last week.

"What it said to me is there still is an appropriate time to use your best judgment either if you have unintended consequences (from an initiative) or things change,'' he said.

In the case of I-713, mole trapping was outlawed, which voters had been told would not happen. In the case of I-732, the economy has fallen apart since the November 2000 election, and budget cuts of at least $550 million with job layoffs are on the table.

Swecker said his preliminary discussions with Rochester School District union representatives revealed more support for maintaining medical benefits at existing levels and retaining teacher planning days than for retaining pay raises. He said his reluctance to go ahead with his bill is several fold, some of it tied to the backlash he might receive.

"It's not just with my constituents," he said. "There is a process up here, too.

"I'd like to have one Democrat sign on with me so it's not a Republican bill," saying that he firmly believes "this is not a partisan issue.''

Brad Shannon, political editor for The Olympian, can be reached at 360-753-1688 or at bshannon @olympia.gannett.com.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

back to State Workers index