Ott's Amendment 22 adopted

Note: Following is an encapsulation of actions taken and remarks made by legislators during today's debate. While this note does reflect remarks made by these lawmakers, it is not a full and verbatim transcript of the remarks.

Brannon withdrew the next seven amendments, bringing the body to Rep. Harry Ott's Amendment 22.

Ott: This amendment says, Let's try it for five years, then look at it. If it's working, this body can reauthorize it. At least we can take a look.

We've voted down all amendments on accountability. Are we just going to throw money at it and hope our problems go away without evaluation the outcome?

With this amendment, in five years, they will get to re-evaluate and determine what they want to do.

Herbkersman: We have been throwing money at a problem without getting results. Would this amendment prevent changes over that five years?

Ott: If you come here next year and decide you want to change something, you can.

Y'all know I'm not for the bill. All I'm saying it, Let's take a breath, look at it after five years and see if it turned out the way you wanted.

Ott asked unanimous consent to change from a five-year period to a seven-year period, which was granted.

Bedingfield requested roll call on adopting the amendment.

Vote: 67-46, adopted!

Watch: Today's press conference on educators' salaries

Thanks to the South Carolina Education Association for the links to this pair of videos!

This is brilliant, and I'm hopeful that all 19 of my readers will forward this blog link far, far, far and wide, wide, wide to friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, long-lost cousins, brand-new acquaintances and people you encounter at gas stations, convenience stores and the Piggly Wiggly.

Remember: When educators organize, educators and their students win.

Patrick Hayes and Lindsey Egloff with Harry Ott and Jackie Hicks, Part 1.


Patrick Hayes and Lindsey Egloff with Harry Ott and Jackie Hicks, Part 2.

Far and wide, friends and neighbors. Spread the word.

Press conference brings attention to educator salaries

When was the last time you saw The State and the Charleston Post & Courier publish stories about restoring educator salaries, on the same day?

Both are trailing the Charleston City Paper by a day, but better late than never. Nothing beats a trend, and news of this one may reach the Upstate by this evening or tomorrow.

The spark for this feeding frenzy by the media is a press conference held just a couple of hours ago at the State House, featuring fourth-grader teacher Patrick Hayes of Charleston. Hayes initiated the online petition -- at the advice of his wife, we've now learned -- in frustration at having his salary frozen for four years. Hayes previously taught in California, where he was a member of an educators union, and where educators are accustomed to organizing in support of their interests.

Thanks to that experience, Hayes is a motivated fellow.

Hayes used a fellow teacher, Lindsey Egloft, as an example. Egloft said she makes $36,679 teaching fifth grade at Drayton Hall Elementary. According to the salary schedule or her district -- given the credits she has earned in a Master’s degree program -- Egloft said she should be making $38,050.

Next year, with lawmakers’ 2 percent raise, Egloft said she would be making $37,360.
...
“I’m going to stop talking about this issue when I’m being paid the salary I was promised when I took the job,” Hayes said.

A pretty pithy summary of the press conference, according to non-media sources who were there. Still, it's coverage. Maybe a later iteration will offer more detail of the dialogue between Hayes and Egloft.

The Post & Courier published a bit more background in its report:

His online petition, Restore Teacher Salaries, has amassed nearly 7,000 signatures since he posted it about a month ago, and his goal is to reach 20,000.

"There's a huge well of resentment about the way teachers have taken the brunt of the state's mismanaged finances," Hayes said.

South Carolina has seen a 24.1 percent drop in per-pupil spending from 2008 to 2012, which is the biggest decrease of any state, according to the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Hayes, a married father of two, isn't one of the district's well-known teacher leaders, but he stays informed on local and statewide issues.

When he heard about the governor's "inflammatory" budget proposal -- which would decrease education funding by nearly $80 million despite a statewide surplus -- he said he felt compelled to act.

Hayes wrote emails to lawmakers and encouraged his co-workers to do the same, and his wife suggested an online petition. He told fewer than 100 people about it, but support grew fast.

"It's the nature of the cuts we've seen the last few years," Hayes said.

Lawmakers have slashed the funds that go to school districts, and they've given local education officials permission to ignore the salary schedule that dictates what teachers are supposed to be paid.

In Charleston, that has meant teachers haven't had a cost-of-living adjustment in three years or a step increase for additional experience in two years.

"It's the only career advancement we have unless we leave teaching and become administrators," Hayes said. "It's not a lot of money, but it's something that's going to happen every year and makes life a little easier."

Charleston County Superintendent Nancy McGinley has said giving teachers the pay they deserve is her No. 1 budget priority, and Hayes said some teachers plan to focus their advocacy on the local school board.

Hayes knows that part of the challenge is raising awareness, and he said a lot will have been accomplished if teachers' salaries can be restored in one year.

"It will take a combination of the state spending more money and districts prioritizing it," he said. "Most people have no idea that this has been going on, but when they hear about it, they want to help."

Educators need full restoration of salaries before bonuses

This is embarrassing.

A salary is compensation for work. A bonus is a reward.

For four years, South Carolina's electeds have frozen -- withheld -- restricted -- effectively cut educators' salaries. Educators went on working, prices went on rising, cost of living went on growing, so the real value of educators' pay went on shrinking.

Now, despite South Carolina's uber-regressive tax policies and thanks to deep budget cuts in recent years, it is enjoying a windfall revenue surplus of nearly a billion dollars.

Time to restore those frozen salaries, right?

Sure, that would be logical, so that wouldn't be our lawmakers' first instinct. In South Carolina, we finally come around to doing what's logical, rational and good a century or two after everyone else. We're not what you call "early adopters" of good ideas. Bad ideas, on the other hand, get us out of bed in the morning before the roosters.

That is the only thing that explains today's news that a proposal to give state workers and educators a one-percent "bonus" has floated to the top of the pool.

House Minority Leader Harry Ott says he will try to push through a 1 percent bonus for state workers and teachers in the state budget.

Harry Ott's a good guy. His intent is noble: Get a few more dollars in the pockets of people who are struggling and who are working hard for South Carolina.

But they don't need itty-bitty one-time bonuses. They need their salaries to be restored, four years' worth of withheld step-increases, tout suite. If the post office can't handle the load, UPS delivers.

Ott said the money would come from the state’s reserve funds, meaning it would be one-time money and not carry over to next year. State employees will have to pay an extra 4.6 percent for their health insurance and will most likely have to pay an additional 1 percent toward the state retirement fund.

Here we have a dictionary definition of highway robbery: Those with power and resources rob those without power and resources of all they're worth, for fictitious reasons such as "We can't afford to do it ourselves." Take this out of the legislative chamber and put the same action in the intersection of Gervais and Main streets, and someone would call the police department to come and make some arrests. But since it's occurring inside the legislative chambers, it's legal.

“I believe they deserve (a bonus),” Ott said.

Me, too. Anyone who's spent a week in a public school classroom agrees that educators deserve a bonus. But before we discuss a bonus, they deserve to have their salaries restored -- that's four years' worth of step-increases, joyfully accepted in cash, cashier's check or money order.

I doubt that a one-time, one-percent bonus is equal to four years' worth of withheld step increases.

State workers and teachers would receive a 2 percent raise under a spending plan approved last week by the House Ways and Means Committee. But Ott said he was worried the 2 percent raise would not be enough to cover the increases in health insurance and retirement contributions. Ott said an extra 1 percent bonus would cost the state about $14 million just for state employees. It was unclear how much money would be required to give teachers a bonus.

State Rep. Brian White, R-Anderson and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he has not decided if he will support Ott’s bonus plan. But he was skeptical of how the state would pay for it.

“Where are you going to get the money?” White said. “Reserve accounts are for reserves.”

Funny that the chair of House Ways and Means should ask where lawmakers should find necessary funding for its obligations and institutions. I consulted the ultimate authority on such matters -- the South Carolina Constitution -- and discovered the answer there in Article III:

SECTION 15. Bills for revenue; other bills.

Bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, but may be altered, amended or rejected by the Senate; all other Bills may originate in either house, and may be amended, altered or rejected by the other.

What tremendous luck! The men and women who are looking for ways to restore state workers' and educators' salaries are precisely the men and women who are empowered by the state Constitution to file bills for raising revenue.

Whew. I was worried there for a minute, thinking that the Constitution might only empower the city council of Stone Mountain, Georgia, to raise the necessary revenues to pay for South Carolina's essential obligations and institutions -- because, as we all know, the city council of Stone Mountain, Georgia, has absolutely no interest in helping raise revenues to pay for South Carolina's needs -- but the authors of our Constitution used great wisdom to put that power squarely in the hands of our General Assembly.

Sounds like this can be resolved pretty quickly, then. All we need is for members of the House to introduce legislation that restores those salaries, and legislation to raise the revenue necessary to do it, then send both bills over to the Senate for its approval. Done and done.

Okeydoke, who's going to do it?

The State details Zais's parsimony, lack of advocacy

Situations like these make me wish there were cameras in committee rooms, so we could all watch the outright foolishness that occurs in them.

In today's The State, reporter Seanna Adcox adds more details to what we knew about Superintendent Mick Zais's lack of commitment to advocating for South Carolina's public schools and the children they serve.

Zais asked a Ways and Means panel not to cut a key funding stream for classrooms but did not ask for an increase. The so-called base student cost primarily pays teacher salaries. The current per-student allocation is $1,880 because of recession budget cuts, though a state funding formula calls for it to be $2,790 this year.

Noting the economy remains uncertain, Zais told the budget-writing panel his budget request for 2012-13 is largely unchanged from the current budget, with a few exceptions. That included $14.5 million to cover student increases, to prevent a drop in base student cost.

"These dollars go to the classroom, and that's where our priorities should be," Zais said.

With a puzzled expression, Rep. Michael Anthony, D-Union, asked, "Why, then, as state superintendent of our public schools, are you not asking for an increase to catch up?"

Mike Anthony's a straight shooter and a lifelong educator -- one of the precious few serving in the legislature -- and I'm sure he knows hundreds or thousands of educators whose success depends upon adequate funding.

House Minority Leader Harry Ott grilled Zais, repeatedly asking whether he's telling teachers they should go a fourth year without a raise.

The Republican superintendent said he's not sure the money is available, and legislators can provide more than he is requesting.

Budget advisors expect an additional $913.4 million in one-time and recurring revenue because of surplus from the fiscal year that closed June 30, along with more money coming in this fiscal year than legislators budgeted, plus continued growth. But required increases - including property tax relief, health care and reserve funds - gobble up most of that money.

It would cost $553 million to restore the base student cost to $2,790, according to the state budget office.

Ott said the Republican-controlled Legislature is highly unlikely to put any more into public education than Zais seeks.

"Your job is to fight for what you think is important for education. You have to take a position," said Ott, D-St. Matthews. "You get to write your budget for whatever you want. You are the man in charge of the request. We find the money."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but damn right.

Our Constitution authorizes one person -- only one, in the whole vast system of South Carolina's government -- to advocate on behalf of public schools and our children, and Zais won that position. Knowing he's tightfisted and opposes public education, maybe he shouldn't have run for the office. But he did, and he won, and whether or not he likes it, it's his job to tell the legislature how much it's going to cost to bring our public schools up to speed, and to walk the halls in Columbia every day in search of those funds. To do less is to abrogate his responsibility.

One would think that a man who rose to the rank of general in the United States military would understand responsibility and would honor it.

Teachers are usually paid based on their years in the classroom and level of degree. But legislators have suspended the step increases for the last several years. Zais said the Legislature could choose to return to the minimum salary schedule.

"How they make it up is up to them," Zais said.

At best, this is disingenuous of Zais. Our legislative majority isn't going to drop so much as a pecan without someone shaking their tree. As superintendent, you advocate for what you want, and you point out every instance that you don't get it from lawmakers.

For reference, Zais might do well to review the superintendency of Inez Tenenbaum, a superintendent who understood the job. Of course, Inez had been an educator before becoming an administrator. Clearly, it made a difference.

Zais' largest request for additional money - $36 million - would buy enough new school buses to comply with the state's 15-year replacement cycle, so the agency can get buses from the mid-'80s off the road. All but five of the state's 201 buses that date from 1984 through 1987 are for students with disabilities.

He also sought an additional $5 million to keep buses fueled and running. With two-thirds of the agency's fleet more than 15 years old, the buses are expensive to maintain and not fuel-efficient, Zais said.

Last year, the Legislature designated up to $12 million in unclaimed lottery money toward replacing them - overriding Gov. Nikki Haley's veto - but the money depends on how many prizes go unclaimed. So far, the agency has received just $2.2 million, which will buy buses for the School for the Deaf and the Blind in Spartanburg, said Zais spokesman Jay Ragley.

The last time legislators designated money for school buses was 2007, when they approved replacing the statewide fleet every 15 years. That would require buying nearly 380 yearly. But that law has been ignored amid the economic downturn.

The economic downturn has nothing to do with ignoring the school bus law; our legislators ignore laws when the wind blows and when it's still, when it rains and when it shines, when it's day and when it's night. Ignoring a law is taken as a prerogative of holding power.

Seanna, here's a great question whose answer ought to be included as context every time the Educating Finance Act and its base student cost as mentioned: How many years -- and specifically, which ones -- has the EFA's base student cost been fully funded since the law was enacted in 1977? I'm confident that someone in the Rutledge Building could tell you, if Zais would allow his staff to talk to the media. Or, you could file a FOIA request to get the data.

Zais recommends closing an incentive program for teachers earning national certification, which provides an annual bonus of either $5,000 or $7,500 - depending on when they applied - for the 10-year life of the certificate. Nothing would change for teachers already in the program.

Zais said studies indicate the expensive program does not improve student learning, but rather that already-excellent teachers pursue the additional certification.

Indeed, we want to leave behind absolutely no incentive for children to aspire to become teachers, and college students to consider education as a viable and stable career choice, and for education professionals to be compensated for their pursuit of additional credentials and professional development. The quicker we can remove all incentive, the quicker they'll leave the profession and we can get down to the business of closing public schools and selling their assets to private companies.