Title: An act relating to funding for reading achievement.

Brief Description: Creating the reading achievement account.

Sponsors: By House Committee on Appropriations (originally sponsored by Representatives Sommers, Kagi, Green and Kilmer).

Brief History:

Appropriations: 1/23/06, 1/24/06 [DPS].

Floor Activity:

Passed House: 2/9/06, 97-1.
Senate Amended.
Passed Senate: 3/2/06, 43-0.

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Majority Report: The substitute bill be substituted therefor and the substitute bill do pass. Signed by 27 members: Representatives Sommers, Chair; Fromhold, Vice Chair; Alexander, Ranking Minority Member; McDonald, Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Armstrong, Bailey, Buri, Clements, Cody, Conway, Darneille, Dunshee, Haigh, Hinkle, Hunter, Kagi, Kenney, Kessler, Linville, McDermott, McIntire, Miloscia, Pearson, Schual-Berke, P. Sullivan, Talcott and Walsh.

Minority Report: Do not pass. Signed by 2 members: Representatives Anderson, Assistant Ranking Minority Member and Chandler.

Staff: Elisabeth Donner (786-7137).

Background:

The Office of the State Treasurer manages over 400 trust accounts and funds. If a fund or account is located within the state treasury, an appropriation is required for expenditures. Ordinarily, unspent appropriations lapse at the close of the fiscal year. Funds and accounts in the custody of the State Treasurer are nonappropriated and generally restricted to a particular purpose. Monthly interest earned from the investment of trust accounts and funds can either be set aside for the Sate General Fund, or a proportionate share of earnings can remain in specified accounts or funds.

The Governor is proposing to consolidate early learning activities into a new cabinet level Department for Early Learning (Department). Washington Learns is also recommending the creation of an early learning department. In the 2005-07 budget, $250,000 was appropriated to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish the Early Reading Initiative (Initiative). The Initiative is a grant program targeted at pre-reading and early reading skills through community-based initiatives.

Summary of Substitute Bill:

A Reading Achievement Account (Account) is created in the custody of the State Treasurer. The Director of the Department for Early Learning (Director) must deposit in the Account all state appropriations to the Department and all non-state moneys received by the Department for reading achievement, including reading foundations and implementation of research-based reading models.

Moneys deposited in the Account will not lapse at the close of the fiscal period for which they were appropriated. The Director, or the Director's designee, may expend moneys in the Account only for the purposes for which they were appropriated, and is subject to any other conditions or limitations placed on the appropriations.

The Reading Achievement Account will retain its interest earnings.

EFFECT OF SENATE AMENDMENT(S):

Added language clarifies that the Reading Achievement Account is a non-appropriated but allotted fund.

Appropriation: None.

Fiscal Note: Not requested.

Effective Date: The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For: The purpose of this bill is to support new reading foundations and other reading programs by allowing the money to carry forward to the next year.

Testimony Against: Representative Sommers, prime sponsor.

Persons Testifying: None.

Persons Signed In To Testify But Not Testifying: None.