KEA Advocate

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Protect our Students and Schools from Funding Cuts
The House Appropriations and Revenue Committee began preparing and releasing its version of the budget this week. On Wednesday A&R passed the revenue part of the budget and the entire House passed it on Thursday.

Although A&R has not released its spending plan yet, House leaders are still talking about cutting two instructional days out of the calendar for at least the next two years. KEA opposes this cut and all cuts to school funding.

While cutting two instructional days will save the state $35 million each year, KEA strongly believes it will hurt our students’ academic security and school employees’ economic security. Many members have emailed or called their legislators, telling them that they need all the instructional time possible, especially just as Kentucky is adopting higher standards. We already have fewer instructional days than most other states. Other KEA members have cited students’ safety and nutrition as reasons to keep them in school as many days as possible.

Reductions in instructional days will also hurt school employees. While the one year reduction will amount to about $500 for teachers and 1-2% for classified employees, the long-term impact is much greater. For example, over a mid-career teacher’s lifetime, the reduction in pay and pension will amount to more than $10,000.

Two bright spots in the budget pertain to retirement. For classified employees, it appears that the House budget will fund the actuarially-required contribution (ARC), a commitment made during the special legislative session of 2008. For certified employees, the state will immediately pay back, through bonding, the money it borrowed from KTRS pension fund to pay for retirees’ health care.

Once the House passes its version of the budget, it will go to the state Senate for action. It’s never too early to ask all legislators – senators and representatives – to protect our students, schools and ourselves from harmful funding cuts.

Please urge your senator and representative not to cut school funding.

Keep Defending School Councils’ Authority to Select Principals
HB 322 is now in the House Education Committee. This bill would give superintendents authority to select principals (in its original version). The committee passed it with a committee substitute amendment (HCS) that would allow councils to select principals, but only from among candidates recommended by the superintendent. KEA opposes both the original version of the bill and the HCS version. After that action HB 322 was recommitted to the committee.

KEA continues to work with legislators to see if we can find a compromise that superintendents and KEA can agree on. Superintendents are pressuring legislators to pass a version of the bill that gives them much more authority than they currently have.

Please urge your member of the House of Representatives
to protect school councils’ authority to select principals.

Bill to Protect KTRS Retiree Health Care Clears its First Hurdle
HB 540, strongly supported by KEA, passed the House Education Committee on Thursday in a unanimous vote. This bill puts in place a plan that will save KTRS retirees’ health care and pensions. Last year KTRS pulled together a group made up of KEA and the organizations representing superintendents, school boards, and administrators.

KEA active and retired leaders helped craft the plan, through which many groups will pay slightly more to shore up KTRS’ medical insurance fund. The KEA Board of Directors unanimously supported the plan.

For the last five years, the state has been borrowing from KTRS’ pension fund to pay for health insurance for its retirees. If this were to continue, both KTRS’ pension and medical insurance funds would soon be depleted. The plan in HB 540 will solve that problem and provide active and retired certified employees with the assurance of health care in their retirement.

Under the plan, school districts will begin making payments into the medical fund. Active teachers will pay about $10 per month into the fund in 2010-11. Retired teachers younger than 65 will also begin paying into the fund – about $38 per month in 2010-11. The state will begin paying for new retirees’ health care next year, too.

Please encourage all legislators to vote for HB 540.
Thank members of the House Education Committee for their support.

Contacting Legislators is Easy – Do it Today
As a KEA local leader, we ask you to both contact legislators yourself and also enlist the members in your school and local to also contact legislators.

KEA and the Legislative Research Commission make it easy to contact legislators. The most effective way to get a message across is in a face-to-face meeting. Most legislators return to their home districts on weekends so that’s a great time to meet or call them at home.

When legislators are back in Frankfort, the easiest way to send an email is through one of KEA’s web sites: www.kea.org or www.keepkentuckylearning.org. The toll-free legislative message line is 800-372-7181. KEA asks that you email through a KEA web site because we get a copy of all messages sent that way. That way we know how many messages each legislator has received.

To keep up every day on what’s happening in the Capitol, “friend” us on Facebook. Our Facebook name is “Ky Education’s Advocates.”

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Kentucky Education Association | 401 Capital Avenue | Frankfort KY 40601 | 800.231.4532 | www.kea.org