Peninsula Daily News
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OLYMPIA — The Chimacum-inspired lawsuit claiming that the state isn’t paying enough for public school education got its day in court Tuesday — the state Supreme Court.
And an animated panel of justices peppered lawyers on both sides with questions about the state’s constitutional obligation to pay for education, sometimes in directions neither side’s lawyer expected.
The justices aren’t expected for several months to rule on whether Olympia insufficiently pays local school districts for education, which a coalition of educators and parents led by former Chimacum School District Superintendent Mike Blair thinks it doesn’t.
Blair, who retired from the top Chimacum schools post last year, has led the plaintiff Network for Excellence in Washington Schools, and the lead lawsuit petitioner is Stephanie McCleary, his former administrative assistant who has two children in Chimacum schools.
Part of the state’s argument is that the 2009 Legislature already put a plan in place to fully fund local education by 2018, reducing the need for local tax levies then.
“The thing I heard that was most frustrating is that it’s not going to even start to be funded for another six years — maybe — and my kids will be out of school,” said McCleary, who has a daughter who is a senior at Chimacum High School.
Thomas Ahearne, the Seattle lawyer who represents the statewide coalition, won the lawsuit in King County Superior Court in February 2010, when Judge John Erlick ruled that the state was violating the state constitution by not fully covering the cost of local education.
The state appealed, saying Erlick reached beyond the state Supreme Court’s previous ruling on this issue in 1978.
Many of the questions from the justices Tuesday concerned whether the Legislature had made any progress lately in improving the way the state pays for basic education.
Assistant Attorney General Bill Clark, representing the state, said lawmakers have made a lot of progress in reform efforts.
But Ahearne countered that the work of the Legislature has been all talk and studies but no action involving money.
Justice Debra L. Stephens, whose history of public service includes time on her local school board near Spokane, asked pointed questions of both lawyers.
She wanted to know how Clark could say that the state has not harmed basic education when teacher salaries, training days and other classroom expenses were cut by the 2011 Legislature.
“We don’t concede that those are cuts to basic education,” Clark said.
Both lawyers and the justices spent a lot of time Tuesday afternoon talking about local tax levies and whether it would make enough difference if all the local levy money was replaced with state dollars.
Clark argued that local school districts use levy money to pay for expenses beyond basic education for providing enhancements, such as football teams.
Ahearne said there’s a lot of evidence to the contrary and that some districts would be forced to shut down schools without levy dollars. He said the state hasn’t proven that all levy dollars are used for “fluff.”
Justice Gerry Alexander kept coming back to this issue, saying too much of the cost of education is paid for by local levies, and he emphasized that wasn’t fair because for some districts, raising local dollars is difficult, if not impossible.
Justice Tom Chambers agreed.
“There’s been no progress in that regard,” Chambers said, referring back to the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision on a similar case, when it ordered the Legislature to address the issue of school levies paying too much of the cost of education.
None of the current justices served on the Supreme Court when that earlier decision was handed down, but some were working as lower court judges or attorneys at that time.
Olympia uses sales, business and state property taxes to pay about 72 percent of what it costs to educate Washington’s 1 million schoolchildren in kindergarten through 12th grade.
About 16 percent comes from locally voted property tax levies, and 9 percent comes from federal dollars, primarily for education of special-needs children.
About 41 percent of the state’s general fund is allocated for K-12 public education.
The 16 percent figure is a statewide average for school levies; some districts raise more than 20 percent, while others raise no local dollars, Clark explained.
Erlick’s ruling said the state doesn’t provide enough money to give every child a chance to meet the state’s essential learning requirements. Instead, the state depends on funding formulas that don’t correlate with the actual cost to teach the state’s children, he wrote.
Clark argued that Erlick’s ruling went beyond the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision on basic education funding and focused too much on outcomes.
“There cannot be a constitutional requirement that all children succeed,” he said.
Justice Alexander questioned out loud whether there was anything the Legislature could do to make everyone happy about school funding to prevent future lawsuits like this one.
Chimacum student Kelsey McCleary told KOMO-TV that full state funding is not just important for kids — it’s for everyone.
“I just hope they choose to put a little bit back into the future,” she said.
“I mean, we are coming up. We’re going to be taking care of you guys,” she told the adults.
“You should think about that.”
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Reporters Keith Eldridge of KOMO-TV, the Seattle news partner of the Peninsula Daily News, and Donna Gordon Blankinship of The Associated Press contributed to this report.
