OLYMPIA, Jan. 10.—Just when it looked like the 2014 Legislature was going to have an easy time of it – aside from the upcoming debate about a gas-tax increase – the state Supreme Court has suddenly dumped a $5 billion problem in its lap.

The court Thursday issued an order telling the Legislature to come up with a plan to fully fund basic education, and gave it an April 30 deadline. The demand immediately threw the Legislature into an uproar, and it appears that school funding – an issue it was leaving for next year – will suddenly become one of the major issues of the session that begins Monday. Not just that, but also a debate about the proper role of the court. The order raises questions about the separation of powers envisioned by the state constitution.

At issue is the Supreme Court’s 2012 McCleary decision, which held that the Legislature is not providing enough money for basic education. It gave lawmakers five years to pump more money into the K-12 schools in a way that could be sustained into the future, reducing reliance on local school levies. Although the Legislature beefed up school spending by $1 billion last year, the court said that’s not good enough. Lawmakers need to do more.

The order, signed by eight of the nine justices, says the state will miss the mark at the rate lawmakers are going. “The state clearly made strides in 2013, which should not be overlooked,” said Chief Justice Barbara Madsen in a press statement. “But the court is very concerned that the state is not going to be in compliance with the constitution by the 2017-18 school year.”

You might see it as a declaration from the court that any growth in state taxes and any conceivable budget cuts are unlikely to produce the kind of money it would like to see. Within minutes of the order state schools superintendent Randy Dorn was floating a tax proposal, talk of micromanagement was filling the air, and stunned lawmakers were left trying to sort out the implications for their coming session.

A Four-Month Deadline

The case stems from a bit of flowery rhetoric in the state’s vintage-1889 constitution, which says the state’s “paramount duty” is to “make ample provision” for basic education in the K-12 schools. Though the passage does not prescribe any particular action in the same nitty-gritty way as other sections of the constitution, the court agreed with education groups in its 1978 Doran decision that it ought to be seen as a mandate with a specific dollar-sign attached.  The court’s 2012 McCleary decision held that the state hadn’t met the full-funding goal. So the court essentially required the state to come up with the money to pay for a pair of basic-education bills passed in 2009 and 2010, during the darkest time of the late recession — otherwise they might have been seen as sunny-day wish-lists.

When it issued the ruling in 2012, the court demanded progress reports from the Legislature and reserved the right to take further action.  But lawmakers largely assumed that they would be the ones to decide how and when to raise the money, subject to court review. By giving the Legislature four months to write a plan, the court raises the possibility that it might require lawmakers to stick to it. Meaning that decisions about taxes and spending that had been on next year’s agenda suddenly have been moved up.

Statehouse leaders were left wondering how much authority the judicial branch of government has to intervene in the affairs of the legislative branch. The implications were just beginning to sink in Thursday afternoon. Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, D-Medina, said the Majority Coalition Caucus will not shift its focus to school funding at the expense of its education reform efforts. The goal isn’t to make the court happy, he said, but rather to redesign the K-12 system to ensure effective classroom instruction. Meaning, among other things, renewed battle with the state teachers’ union over such matters as teacher evaluations. “We will let them [the court] go about their business,” he said. “We are going to make sure that Washington has a great education system. It is about far more than a constitutional mandate. It is about doing right for our students, doing right by what parents expect from us, and that is going to be our focus. Without reforms, we don’t get there.”

How Far Does it Go?

The court order Thursday made for plenty of headscratching. What happens if lawmakers don’t satisfy the court? The constitution prohibits the court from sending lawmakers to jail. But could it mean the court will usurp the Legislature’s prerogative to decide where and how to spend the state’s tax money? Will it write the state budget? One observer on Facebook posed the question, what happens if the court holds the Legislature in contempt? And a wag responded, nothing – because everyone else does already.

But clearly it seems a most taxing debate is ahead. Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee issued a statement declaring, “I fully expect we’ll continue our vigorous discussion about closing tax loopholes and other sustainable strategies to fund our children’s education. As I said last month, we cannot – and will not — meet all these needs and obligations by cutting services to vulnerable children and adults, higher education and communities.”

Inslee’s statement included a reminder that he has promised to deal with teacher salary increases in 2015. But the minority Democrats in the Senate did him one better, declaring the court order gives them a reason to find a way to raise teacher salaries now. Senate Minority Leader Sharon Nelson, D-Maury Island, said the court-ordered school funding plan practically requires lawmakers to sweeten the pot.

“This plan must include provisions for funding the state’s share of teacher compensation, which has gone underfunded for far too long,” Nelson said. We want every child to have a great teacher, but to hire those great teachers, we need to pay a competitive salary, and we’re dumping a huge share of the burden onto our local districts. Having a teacher in the classroom is a basic part of a kid’s education, and as the court says, the state needs to fully fund its share of the cost. As the court says, ‘nothing can be more basic than adequate pay for teachers.’”

Dorn Proposes Taxes

Meanwhile, schools superintendent Randy Dorn used the ruling as argument for a tax plan he released Thursday. Dorn would add a penny to the state sales tax and use a mechanism known as the “levy swap” to shift some expenses from local levies to the state property tax levy. At a news conference, Dorn said he intends his tax proposal as a fallback position in case the Legislature does not come up with a plan to fully fund basic education by 2018. “It is kind of like a [congressional] sequester kind of situation. If you don’t do this, then this goes into effect, because right now I don’t know if the Supreme Court has the teeth to make the Legislature do it. So I am trying to make the Legislature do it.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t meet the real-world test, complained Liv Finne of the Washington Policy Center in a blog posting Thursday evening. It doesn’t take into account the balancing act that lawmakers must do as they make spending decisions. “The education budget the justices propose in their latest McCleary court order omits any consideration of the real-world trade-offs involved in responsibly spending public money.  Their proposed education budget reads like a standard lawmaker’s wish list, areas of public spending he would like to increase, but without identifying what program cuts or tax increases are needed to make it happen.

“Legislators are elected to make the tough budget decisions necessary to provide essential services, including education, and then are accountable to the public for the results.  In contrast, in McCleary the Supreme Court justices seem to want all the benefit of ordering increases in state spending, without having to be accountable for making hard choices.  Instead, they are handing that job to lawmakers.”