Tag Archives: Senate Ways and Means Committee

Senate budget committee passes Hawkins-Wellman education bill

A bill prime-sponsored by 12th District Sen. Brad Hawkins aimed at learning recovery due to impacts of the COVID pandemic, including a pilot project to help districts voluntarily reform their school calendars, was approved today by the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

As amended and passed by the committee, Hawkins’ bipartisan legislation, Senate Bill 5147, would help assist districts with “learning stabilization, recovery, and acceleration” in response to struggling academics resulting from less than ideal remote learning and significantly reduced in-person instruction.

Hawkins, the ranking Republican member on the Senate’s Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee, has partnered on the bill with 41st District Sen. Lisa Wellman, who chairs the committee and is the lead co-sponsor of Senate Bill 5147. Prior to the committee’s passage of the bill, Hawkins and Wellman worked together on a sweeping amendment to the measure that would:

  • Fund three additional instructional days to all districts statewide in the 2021-22 school year.
  • Direct the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to create and administer a grant program to assist school districts in facilitating a weeklong “reengagement” program prior to the start of the 2021-22 school year for students to reconnect with peers and teachers through learning, physical activity, and social interaction.
  • Direct OSPI to administer a grant program to fund up to five days of additional education opportunities in preparation for the 2021-22 school year for lower-income districts.
  • Advance a “balanced school calendar” program to allow up to 20 school districts to explore using their 180 state-funded school days differently to implement an 11-month school calendar beginning in the 2022-23 school year.

“This bill took a significant step forward by being approved by the Ways and Means Committee today,” said Hawkins. “The substitute version that Senator Wellman and I developed broadens the bill to help school districts address learning stabilization and recovery, in both the short term and the longer term.”

Hawkins, who served for 10 years on the Eastmont School Board and North Central Educational Service District Board before being elected to the Legislature, says the state should be supporting districts to address learning recovery to try to catch students up to their prepandemic academic learning trajectory.

“Now is the time – as we prepare to move past this pandemic – to assist our school districts and their students with their growing academic and social challenges resulting from loss of instruction or less than ideal remote learning. We also need to think big about reforming the system and to get serious about exploring better opportunities for student learning in the years ahead. The ‘balanced calendar’ pilot remains as a section of the bill to help incentivize districts to change,” said Hawkins.

Senate Bill 5147 now goes to the Senate Rules Committee for further consideration.

To review the committee-approved amendments, click here and here.

To review a summary of the bill, click here.

Photo caption: Sen. Brad Hawkins (left) and Sen. Lisa Wellman worked together on changes to Senate Bill 5147 before it was passed by the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Senate committee approves Hawkins bill providing tax parity for hydropower

A recently introduced bill by 12th District Sen. Brad Hawkins that seeks to put hydroelectric power on equal tax footing with other renewable energy sources has cleared a key legislative hurdle.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee yesterday approved Senate Bill 6012. The proposal would add hydropower as a qualifying renewable energy source that receives a renewable energy sales and use tax exemption. The exemption could apply to the state portion of the sales and use taxes for machinery and equipment utilized in the replacement of hydroelectric generating units, which are currently planned or underway for many of the Mid-Columbia public utility district hydroelectric facilities, such as those owned by Chelan, Grant, and Douglas PUDs. The estimated savings in sales taxes could be over $22 million to those PUDs over the 10 years’ length of the tax exemptions in Hawkins’ proposal.

Yesterday, the committee held a public hearing on SB 6012 and approved it with an amendment that hydro operators qualifying for the tax exemption would need to demonstrate that their hydro investments resulted in additional electricity output. During his testimony on the bill, Hawkins told the panel his proposal is about the fundamental issue of fairness and equal treatment.

“Our state prides itself in clean energy and has extended tax preferences to everything but hydropower – wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, tidal, you name it. But not hydropower,” said Hawkins. “Hydropower provides a significant amount of reliability. We can’t even contemplate being a 100 percent clean energy state without hydropower. If we are going to provide tax preferences for all of our other energy sources, then I think the time is now to also provide this tax preference to hydropower.” 

Chelan Public Utility District General Manager Steve Wright testified in favor of SB 6012, as did officials with Tacoma Power, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Washington Public Utility Districts Association, Avista, and Cowlitz PUD. Another 41 people signed up in support of the bill but did not testify.    

Hawkins’ bipartisan proposal now goes to the Senate Rules Committee, the final hurdle before a full Senate vote. The state operating budget, not yet finalized, would need to consider the bill’s fiscal impact if approved.

(Editor’s note: Here is a link to TVW’s coverage of the testimony on SB 6012 yesterday.)