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Sen. Hill: Put 2/3rds of New Revenue to Education Funding

In keeping with a two-thirds theme for the first two days of the legislative session, Sen. Andy Hill, R-Redmond and the budget writer in the Senate, held a hearing Tuesday on his proposal to devote two-thirds of all new state revenue to education funding.

The proposal tracks with a political motif Hill relentlessly stressed during his re-election campaign last year, which is that the state has failed to prioritize education spending over the last three decades.

Staff for the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which Hill chairs, noted that in the 1983-85 biennium, the state devoted 63 percent of its budget to education, which dropped over the ensuing decades to a low of 49 percent from 2005 to 2007. It’s increased since then, to a 55 percent share currently, but that’s with the state Supreme Court’s McCleary ruling mandating lawmakers increase funding.

His bill, SB 5063, would increase that to 59 percent, near the 30-year high, by the 2023-25 biennium, according to projections. The only exceptions are for extraordinary caseload growth in other state social programs, which would have to exceed a five-year average, or to comply with lawsuits mandating increased funding.

The bill has a referendum clause, meaning voters will have to ultimately approve it if the Legislature passes it. It starts in 2017 and lasts through 2027. Since it applies only to new revenue, Hill said it doesn’t constrain lawmakers as they try to balance the budget in an economic recession.

“The concept is what I want to get out there,” Hill said. “For 30 years, it went two-to-one against growth in education. That’s why we got sued. This is simply a tool to provide guardrails to get the Legislature to prioritize education spending.”

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Sen. Andy Hill, R-Redmond

Some Democrats on the Ways & Means Committee and unions were convinced Hill’s proposal does more harm than good, as they argued it would siphon away money to the detriment of other social programs benefiting low-income children in Washington state.

Lindsey Grad, legislative director for the Service Employees International Union Healthcare 1199NW, which represents nurses and healthcare workers statewide, argued that the exemption for the costs of lawsuits is just acknowledging that the state will get sued again because of insufficient funding.

In building the case for new taxes, Democrats have said cutbacks to state programs are the fundamental cause of the numerous lawsuits Gov. Jay Inslee is including funding for in his budget proposal, discounting the McCleary funding.

“This bill would likely mean more court cases coming to the Legislature like McCleary,” Grad said.

But as committee staffer Steve Jones said, prioritizing two-thirds of new revenue for schools would swell the education budget over the next 10 years. Based on the most recent revenue forecast of 4.5 percent annual growth from last November, the analysis said the state would be spending $30.5 billion on education by 2023, up from $20.1 billion now. Non-education spending would grow to $21.7 billion from $16.4 billion currently.

That could prove wildly off base, as anyone who’s seen the plummet of state revenues in an economic recession will confirm, but Hill argued that this would be the confirmation the state Supreme Court is looking for in its McCleary ruling.

Paul Guppy, research director for the Washington Policy Center, backed up Hill’s contention.

“This bill puts this question to rest,” Guppy said. “This bill says to (the Supreme Court) it is the paramount duty.”

Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, said she wasn’t convinced because it didn’t deal with the ruling’s teacher compensation portion, or its levy-equalization question, which will require the state to lessen the reliance local school districts or using on school levies.

“It doesn’t fix the McCleary funding,” Rolfes said. “I don’t want this body to pass this and assume they’ve fixed the problem.”

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Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island

It’s also worth noting what’s not included in the baseline forecast to get to the $30.5 billion by the 2023-25 biennium. Ways & Means staff assumed an education budget of $20.1 billion in 2015-17, and $16.4 billion in non-education spending. Add the two together and you get the $36 billion Hill references in his budget presentation as his assumption of the state’s basic costs for this budget cycle.

He expects revenue growth to cover that plus an extra billion dollars, which he proposes putting toward the $750 million in maintenance and operations costs required by McCleary, and about $250 million in teacher pay hikes.

Additional program funding like class size reductions for grades kindergarten through third grade isn’t in there, or expanding all-day kindergarten statewide. Nor is there any salary increases for state employees included on the non-education side, which is about a $600 million bill that could come due in the current budget cycle, if the Legislature can agree to fund it. Funding for a recent voter-approved class size initiative, I-1351, which would cost about $4 billion to fully implement, isn’t included in the baseline.


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