FEA
Frontline Report
Interim
Committee Meeting Week
January 28, 2013
“What exactly are we trying to fix here?”¾ Rep. Irv Slosberg asked during discussions of overhauling
the state retirement plans.
The official start of the 2013 Legislative Session is March 5, but interim
committee meetings have been ongoing since December. Little reportable
activity has occurred thus far – although this week things began to pick
up. They have now outlined their plans for the Florida Retirement System,
started talking about on-line education, and were updated by the Florida
Department of Education (FLDOE) regarding the progress of implementation of SB
736 (which passed during the 2011 Session).
We hope each year the legislature will just leave education alone; that
public education can don the cloak of invisibility and successfully hide this
one out – no more new crazy schemes and ‘reforms’, no more ‘help’ -
just let our people teach and work. No such luck. Education reform
continues to be a hot political topic.
Remember
this: at the core of the education reform debate is not so much a disagreement
over ideology but rather whether education policy decisions should be made on
sound teaching practice and research on learning - or on business plan
objectives. The disagreement boils down to who profits: corporations and
their CEOs or our students.
That
is the legislative reality we face once again. Welcome back!
· Bill
Update
Last Friday was the last day legislators are allowed submit their concepts
for 2013 bills into bill drafting. That means no other legislative member bills
can be submitted for the upcoming session. Keep in mind, this is not the
“filing” deadline but rather the “drafting” deadline. Final bills must be
“filed” and therefore released to the public no later than March 5 at
noon. Committee bills are another story; we’ll talk more about those as
Committees begin their work in earnest. They can be very scary.
At the time this report was compiled, 525 bills had been numbered and
filed. FEA is currently tracking 82 education related bills. Not
all of these bills will ever see daylight. We will provide more detailed
information as bills begin to be placed on Committee agendas.
· The
Implementation of SB 736
This week the
House K-12 Subcommittee heard a presentation by the FLDOE
regarding the personnel evaluation systems and implementation of the
Student
Success Act (aka SB 736). The law is slated for full implementation in the
2014-15 school year - the same year Florida fully transitions to Common Core
standards.
Some legislators have publicly expressed concerns that the rushed
implementation schedule of SB 736, Common Core statewide assessments and
increased graduation requirements is a recipe for disaster. Yet, the DOE
presentation glossed over the implementation issues and unresolved problems
with the various moving parts of the assessment and evaluation systems.
And no one mentioned paying for it all.
FLDOE reported that all 67 school districts have requirements to follow, but
they have a lot of flexibility in choosing how to evaluate teachers. They
presented charts and graphs indicating how well VAM was working: “just as we
had hoped” (
click here to see the report).
The rosy report prompted Rep. Dennis Baxley (R-Ocala) to gleefully announce,
“Those who say it can’t be done need to get out of the way of those who are
doing it. This has come a mighty long way and a lot of undoables are being done
here ... seeing what gets measured and what gets done is tremendous.”
Yet,
other committee members were skeptical. Rep. Ronald Renuart (R- Ponte Vedra
Beach) asked whether the measurements developed so far take into account
whether the teacher works in an “F” or an “A” school. He asked for data showing
what happened to a teacher’s value-added score when a teacher with an
unsatisfactory evaluation in a low-performing school is transferred to a
high-performing school. DOE indicated that since the state has just one year of
data, it is not yet able to assess the impact.
According
to the Florida Current, Renuart later said he wants to ensure the system
is fair to teachers.
“I want to make sure a teacher gets a fair assessment if it is going to
affect their livelihood,” said Renuart. Although impressed with the
presentation he remarked, “I’m sure once I get back to my district I’ll be
hearing some other sides to this.”
Rep. Karen Castor-Dentel (D-Maitland)
¾
one of two actual public school teachers sitting on the committee
¾ questioned the use of VAM to evaluate
teachers who do not teach FCAT subjects. FLDOE responded that the
districts had the flexibility to decide what measure to use.
This is just the beginning of conversations around the implementation of SB
736 and other education proposals. Bills are being drafted to make changes to
the current law including:
· A
bill (HB 377) to delay implementation of SB 736 has been filed by Rep. Mike
Clelland (D-Lake Mary). We believe a similar bill will be filed in the
Senate by Sen. Geraldine Thompson (D-Orlando).
· A
bill to change the requirements of SB 736 for evaluation of non-FCAT teachers
and non-classroom instructional personnel is in bill drafting by Sen. Audrey
Gibson (D-Jacksonville) and Rep. Dwayne Taylor (D-Daytona Beach). This is
the same bill we worked on last year but it was never placed on the committee
agenda. No bill numbers have been assigned at this time.
· A
bill to create a “wrap-around services” pilot program has been entered in bill
drafting by Rep. Ricardo Rangel (D-Kissimmee). No bill number has been
assigned at this time.
Other FEA legislative priorities will be in the works through the amendatory
process.
· Start
of the 2013-2014 Budget Process
The governor is required to submit a budget proposal each year prior to the
legislative session. Last year he rolled out his
ONE BILLION DOLLARS
for education plan. This year the PR gimmick is a $2,500 raise for every
public school teacher. Remember – the legislature writes and passes the
budget. The governor’s budget is just a suggestion – the legislature may
or may not go along with all or part of it.
A $2,500 increase in pay would certainly be welcome, but it’s important to
put it in its proper context. Starting in July 2011, teachers and ESPs – as
well as law-enforcement officers, firefighters and other workers who are in the
Florida Retirement System – had 3 percent of their salaries taken away so that
the state could balance the budget. In addition, on January 1 of this year, a
temporary federal tax break on Social Security and Medicare ended after two
years – resulting in more than 2 percent disappearing from the paychecks of
teachers and ESPs.
While the governor may propose an across-the-board pay increase, it’s still
subject to collective bargaining and districts have to deal with plenty of
unfunded mandates and cost increases. The governor has indicated he wants to
dedicate money for a teacher pay increase by carving out a special category for
it in his proposed budget.
Scott has also indicated that he will make a future announcement regarding
pay for ESPs and other proposals, including one that would put more money in
the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP).
· House
Workshop on ‘State-worker Pension Reform’
NOTE: There is no bill at this time. The House Government Operations
Subcommittee discussed a proposal that would shift all future state employees
to a 401(k)-style retirement plan. Committee chairman Rep. Jason Brodeur
(R-Sanford) indicated the measure's future could depend on studies of the
proposal's financial impact. The committee is waiting for an actuarial
assessment that will indicate the long-term impact of reduced contributions
going into the FRS Pension Plan before moving forward with the plan.
Rep. Ritch Workman (R-Melbourne), who spearheaded the 2011 changes, said
during the 2011 debates that the existing retirement system needed to be fully
funded before moving to a 401(k)-style plan. But House Speaker Will Weatherford
(R-Wesley Chapel) has said he thinks the state needs to make the switch. And
Brodeur said that the state's budget situation is now strong enough to consider
the changes.
Brodeur stressed that current employees would not be affected.
The current proposal would:
· Place
all state employees hired after Jan. 1, 2014 would be placed in a
defined-contribution plan (Investment or sometimes referred to as 401(K) plans)
instead of the defined-benefit plan that most state workers currently join.
· Close
the Senior Management Optional Annuity Program effective Jan. 1, 2014 (only 30
enrollees statewide)
· Expand
investment options to include an employee directed option (brokerage account)
· Eliminate
the option to apply for disability benefits under the pension plan for new
enrollees effective January 1, 2014.
Opponents of the proposal argued that the state's pension plan is one of the
best performing in the nation and is financially sound. In fact, FEA and other
critics of the measure testified the proposal could cost state taxpayers
additional money to set up and fund a defined contribution plan, beginning with
$150 million next year and escalating to $450 million within three years.
"What exactly are we trying to fix here?" asked Rep. Irv Slosberg
(D-Boca Raton).
As you well know, this is a remnant of the fight two years ago between
public employees and mostly Republican supporters of overhauling the state
retirement plans. At that time legislators voted to require employees to
contribute 3 percent of their income to the retirement plan, but shied away
from Gov. Rick Scott's insistence that workers should eventually be shifted to
a 401(K) type plan.
"If the study comes back, and it is not where we thought it was going
to be, I don't know how much appetite members are going to have to do something
like that," Broduer said.
Thanks to Pat Dix for her
contributions to this report.
The next committee week begins February
4.
