Guest Column: LWV Sums up Legislature’s Work on Education and Budget

State Legislature still at work in last week of session

— from the League of Women Voters of Washington State LWVwa.org—

The regular Legislative session end is fast approaching, on Sunday, April 26. The Supreme Court hearing is scheduled the next day to consider possible sanctions related to the contempt of court ruling on the McCleary education lawsuit. So the Legislature has been tackling the issue of how to address the plan for amply funding education – the State’s paramount duty – and also not demolish other important state services.

The House of Representatives Appropriations and Finance Committees have proposed a spending and revenue plan that includes a capital gains tax, which League supports, to supplement existing sources of funding and an increase in the budget for kindergarten – grade 12 (K-12) schools. The appropriation portion of this package has been adopted by the full House of Representatives, though the funding portion has not yet, but the votes for it are likely there.

The Senate has passed a budget plan that does not include any new revenue but would appropriate approximately the same amount for education as the House. However, this plan reduces funding for many state services and agencies, such as Parks, and withholds cost of living adjustments for state employees, among the strategies for being able to increase K-12 education funding. For more information on the various budget proposals, click here.

Education Funding Plan
Although both the House and the Senate adopted budgets which include more funding for K-12 education than in past years, neither includes enough money to reasonably expect that the goal will be reached by 2018. See this chart prepared by Network for Excellence in Schools.

Late this week, three proposals were released to show how McCleary conditions could be met.This is important because in both 2013 and 2014 the state Supreme Court ordered the Legislature to produce a plan to show how it would fully fund K-12 education by 2018. After the Legislature ignored those orders, the Court held the state in contempt. Finally, this week several bills proposing K-12 school funding plans have been introduced. The Senate Ways & Means Committee heard two of the bills on April 17 and will hear two others on April 20.

The Senate Republicans’ plan, SB 6109, proposes a statewide educator salary schedule with regional differences, creates statewide health benefits, would limit local bargaining, repeals Initiative-732’s cost of living adjustment (COLA), and reduces local levy property tax rates while raising the state property tax rate.

The Senate Democrats’ plan, SB 6104, would create a six-year plan for salary increases, limit local school employee bargaining, and implement Initiative-1351 (class size). SB 6103 would reduce and limit local school levies. SB 6102 calls for a 7% tax on capital gains over $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for couples with a constitutional amendment preventing the levels from dropping lower. It would pay for SB 6104 and SB 6103.

In the House, HB 2239 would create a K-12 funding council that would make recommendations to the Legislature on salaries, levies, and collective bargaining by December, 2015. By June 2016 the Legislature would have to enact legislation based on the recommendations.

What Next?
Ultimately, any budget and any education funding plan must pass both the House and the Senate and be something that the Governor is willing to sign. In this week’s bi-cameral negotiations with the Governor he indicated that he would veto solutions that did not add $1.3 billion in additional funding for K-12 education. The Governor wants to fully fund teacher collective bargaining agreements; fund teachers’ salaries appropriately, including cost of living adjustments; and reflect progress on funding mental health services and early learning. He further indicated he would not accept a budget from the Legislature that was too lean in funding for other state services (such as Parks), that does not have sustainable revenue streams. The Governor wants a budget that also includes new needed programs such as the new medical school for WSU and drought response.

Written by the LWV of Washington and courtesy of  the League of Women Voters of the San Juans, Diane Martindale, President