Gov. Jay Inslee has proposed $2.35 billion in new education spending and hiring 7,000 new teachers for the upcoming budget cycle, which would bring Washington state a year ahead of schedule in meeting the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision but would leave the majority of a voter-approved class-size initiative unfunded.
The new spending is mostly focused in cutting the class size of grades kindergarten through third grade down to 17, from 20 to 25 presently, which is mandated by McCleary but is also a requirement of Initiative 1351, which received narrow approval by the state’s voters last month.
That would be accomplished by the 2016-17 school year at a cost of $448 million to the state, but Inslee’s plans hits on other elements of the McCleary ruling in adding $107.6 million to finally fully implement all-day kindergarten programs statewide, and $750 million in maintenance and operational costs.
I-1351 requires the state to reduce the average class sizes for grades four through 12, at an estimated cost of $2 billion this budget cycle and $4.7 billion by 2019. Only the first part — kindergarten through third grade — is included in Inslee’s budget proposal, but he said in a townhall meeting in Bellevue that he doesn’t support repealing the initiative.
How the state would come up with the extra money for I-1351 is a looming question in the Legislature, but it’s overshadowed by a nearer-term question currently: How to pay for Inslee’s plan.
The governor will release his budget proposal on Thursday, with an expectation that he will seek $1 billion in tax increases to pay for it. He was mum on Monday night about which taxes he would seek to increase, part of a strategy of cutting areas of the budget and shutting down tax incentives to balance the budget over the next two years.
The other big-ticket item in his budget proposal is almost $600 million for pay increases for the state’s teachers, as well as funding the state’s share of a higher pension contribution rate.
“Teachers need to know we stand with them,” Inslee said at Newport High School. “We need to give these students what they need to succeed. For too long we’ve been throwing teachers into the pool and letting them sink or swim.”
The governor’s budget proposal would also freeze tuition rates for two years in higher education, and add $156.3 million to early learning education programs, such as adding 6,358 slots for a state-run preschool program for low-income children.
Another $87.4 million is included to boost high-school graduation rates, including $20 million for hiring additional parent-engagement coordinators for elementary schools.
INSLEE LAUDS PLAN, SAVINGS SCANT
Inslee lauded his proposal as the largest investment in basic education in a quarter-century, and it would up state spending on K-12 education to a record-high $17.65 billion, up from $15.3 billion in the current two-year budget cycle.
As for savings, Inslee’s plan offers up a scant $28.6 million in savings from changing the high school assessment system, and cutting the number of tests as his policy staff argued some are duplicative. That would save the state $23 million. Another $5.6 million in savings is included by modifying the state’s Running Start program.
“I am very confident that this is going to save dollars, but we are going to retain the rigor (of testing),” Inslee said. “I think you share my sense of what we can do if we put our mind to it.”
But, the key part to the proposal will be tax increase, as Inslee said last Friday he plans to propose taking revenue from a program to cut the state’s carbon emissions, likely a cap-and-trade program, and plugging it into the education budget.
Whether that passes muster in a Republican-held Senate remains to be seen. Republican leadership has been muted thus far on what kinds of reforms they would seek in exchange for the new revenue the Governor’s seeking, or if they would even sign off on such a large tax increase to begin with.
Republican lawmakers did not return phone calls seeking comment Monday night, but Sen. Bruce Dammeier, R-Puyallup, told the Seattle Times the notion of relying on tax increases to balance the budget was “fundamentally flawed.”
Inslee rolled out his education plans through a series of coordinated town halls in Spokane, Bellevue, Moses Lake and Tacoma, which were linked together via a video conferencing system.
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND WAIVER, LEVY SWAP UNTOUCHED
Washington state was the first state in the nation to lose its waiver under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, costing the state’s school districts control of $40 million in federal funding when it couldn’t hammer out an agreement on evaluating teachers to the federal standards, which uses standardized testing to measure performance.
The waiver loss forces Washington to send funding that would have gone to low-income students to private tutoring or bussing students who want to go to schools meeting federal standards in reading or math, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The failure to adopt the evaluation system led to blame directed at lawmakers and the state’s teachers union, which resisted the federal standards because it argued they were unfair measures of a teacher’s performance. State Schools Superintendent Randy Dorn has blamed provisions of the federal law he feels are badly in need of updating, but also put the responsibility on the union.
Asked about the waiver Monday night, Inslee said he will work with the Legislature to determine how to move forward with getting the waiver back, although his budget plan would replace some of the programming lost, such as all-day kindergarten for low-income students, and expanded preschool.
“We have lost funding in that regard,” Inslee said. “We have to work with the Legislature to see if they can fill that hole.”
His plans also skirted a reform favored by House Appropriations Chair Ross Hunter, D-Medina, and some Republicans, called a “levy swap” that would in essence replace local levy dollars — drawn from property tax payments that funds schools — with state property tax revenue. The proposal would count toward fulfilling the McCleary decision.
The swap would stay under the 1 percent cap required by a 2001 ballot measure, but would technically decrease the local school district’s reliance on levy dollars — an element of the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision. School districts are relying on levy dollars for as much as 28 percent of their funding, which the court has said is out-of-whack.
The proposal has left other Democrats reticent to embrace it, however, because it doesn’t apply evenly across all school districts. Property-rich areas such as the Puget Sound region would get hit harder than rural, less population-dense areas that don’t have as high property values.
Inslee opposed the idea during his campaign for governor in 2012, but won’t reveal his revenue plans until Thursday.
A BIGGER BILL LOOMS
Inslee said he believes his plan is a “first-step” toward meeting the state’s education needs. But a much larger bill awaits in subsequent budget cycles, particularly when the bill for the full weight of I-1351 hits to the tune of $4.7 billion through 2019, according to the Office of Financial Management.
There’s also questions of how the state could house the added staff and teachers required in 1351, which would reduce class sizes at all grade levels but would need additional space and the construction of new schools.
Inslee and OFM Director David Schumacher have offered assurances that funding to accommodate the lower K-3 class sizes will be provided in the state’s capital budget, but money on top of that would be needed to satisfy all of 1351’s requirements.
The Washington Education Association was unhappy Inslee’s plans did not include 1351 payments, saying it’s now the law and reflects what the voters want done.
But Inslee said solving the state’s education funding needs will require more time than a two-year budget cycle.
“We’re going in the right direction,” Inslee told his audience.
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