By Donna Gordon Blankinship
The Associated Press
SEATTLE — The state education budget isn’t the only topic up for debate in Olympia as the legislative season begins today, but money for schools will likely dominate the conversation.
The Legislature is under a state Supreme Court order to figure out how to finish paying for the education reforms they approved in previous years before they wrap up this legislative session.
If they fail to meet this deadline, the court has promised sanctions.
Potential penalties include fines for the Legislature or individual lawmakers, having the court rewrite the state budget and revoking tax exemptions.
In 2012, the court ruled that lawmakers are not meeting their constitutional responsibility to fully pay for basic education and that they are relying too much on local tax-levy dollars to balance the education budget.
The court gave the Legislature until the 2017-18 school year to fix the problem detailed in the lawsuit brought by a coalition of teachers, parents, students and community groups.
Lawmakers have almost reached consensus on what they must pay for to satisfy the court’s decision on the McCleary lawsuit: all-day kindergarten statewide, smaller classes in kindergarten through third grade, as well as transportation, classroom equipment and supplies.
Still up for debate:
■ How to pay for these education improvements.
■ How fast to pay the McCleary obligations.
■ What to do about the state’s heavy reliance on local tax levy dollars.
■ What to do about the voter initiative on smaller classes in every grade.
■ Whether more policy decisions still need to be made about education.
The biggest budget debates will likely center on how to find $1 billion to $2 billion to add to the state budget for education and whether to seek another $2 billion to pay for the voter initiative on class sizes.
Gov. Jay Inslee has proposed several ways to get more money into the state budget including a new 7 percent capital gains tax on the sale of stocks, bonds and other assets.
The new tax would be projected to bring in $800 million a year, starting with the second year of the 2015-17 budget period.
The governor also wants to repeal some tax breaks, impose a sales tax on bottled water, increase the cigarette tax and put a levy on carbon polluters that he said will raise $380 million.
Republicans in the state Senate said the state won’t have any trouble finding the money it needs to add to the education budget because the new revenue expected from the economic rebound will provide enough.
The chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Sen. Andy Hill, R-Redmond, said the Democrats have created a “deficit myth” to support their call for more tax money.
His counterpart in the state House, Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, said Republican lawmakers want to keep pushing the state’s financial obligations forward to another year.
His goal is to change the way the state pays for education during this Legislature, instead of having to keep responding to the Supreme Court every year.
“I’d like to do this once — find a solution that works for this year and for 2017-19,” Hunter said, adding that he doesn’t see a reasonable outcome that doesn’t involve a tax increase.
Hunter’s budget plan is to split the remaining cost of the McCleary obligations over four years and spend about $1.3 billion each year.
The Supreme Court’s 2012 McCleary decision is not the only pressure on state accounts.
Lawmakers also face demands for money to finish some big transportation projects and for mental health and prison infrastructure.
They will have to deal with pay raises in state employee union contracts.
Also, they may want to plan for another big forest fire season and other potential drains on the state’s rainy day fund.
Legislative leaders who have been talking about education reform for many years said the McCleary “problem” is not just about dollars.
Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, said the school funding issue is also about fairness, educational outcomes and the state’s values.
The chairman of the House Finance Committee hopes lawmakers will make time to talk about the bigger picture.
He has some ideas he would like to air out in the public debate, including making preschool and college as much a part of basic education as K-12.
“I am not advocating for a radical change in the short term. I’m inviting us to have courageous and authentic public dialogue about our investment in public education,” Carlyle said.
