As I mentioned yesterday, the newly proposed Senate supplemental includes several reforms.  These include SB 6618, which would repeal Initiatives 728 and 732.  (The bill has seen no action in the legislature so far.)

The bill notes the January 2012 decision from the state supreme court that the state has not fulfilled its paramount duty to provide basic education:

The court also noted that, if fully funded, the reform package [of 2009] will remedy deficiencies in the K-12 funding system.  Therefore, continuing to make vigorous progress in phasing in those reforms must be the legislature’s focused priority with regard to K-12 funding. . . .

Given that a substantial portion of the purpose of the initiatives will be incorporated as part of the focused work group created in this act for phasing-in the reforms recently enacted . . . and given that all K-12 funding efforts should be aimed toward basic education, the separate initiative requirements must be set aside.

The bill would repeal Initiative 728 (also known as the Student Achievement Program, it is often referred to as the “class size initiative”) and Initiative 732 (school employee cost of living adjustments).  It would also create a “basic education funding joint legislative work group,” which

must develop a long-term financial plan that phases in enhancements, and matches the expenditure plan with options for existing or additional state revenue that may include shifting a portion of school district excess levy authority to state property tax levy.

The work group would make recommendations by December 31, 2012.

In a policy brief earlier this year, we recommended that the legislature repeal Initiatives 728 and 732.  They were approved by voters in 2000 without a funding source.  Since then, they have rarely been funded, yet they are always included in the maintenance level for future biennia. We estimated in the brief that if I-728 and I-732 remained on the books, they would cost $1.2 billion in 2013-15.  As we concluded the brief,

the continued relevance of Initiatives 728 and 732 must be considered in the context of recent legislation making changes to basic education funding, as well as this month’s Supreme Court decision that the state is not fulfilling its duty to fund basic education.

To build these programs into the base of the budget for the next biennia surely does not represent the prioritization of resources to which lawmakers must continue to be committed in the next biennium.