Our Voice: Education funding should be further along

State lawmakers took a step toward fulfilling a court order to fully fund basic education when they recently approved Senate Bill 6195. But it is, unfortunately, a tiny step.

The bill’s primary goal is to establish a task force to study teacher pay and recommend a state legislative plan for their salaries. It also requires the Legislature to reduce the state’s reliance on school levies by the end of the 2017 legislative session.

The bill has been called “the plan to plan” and should have been accomplished long before now. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn has opposed it, calling it another stalling tactic.

His office recently released a list of past studies on education funding that already have been conducted. Here is a list of the years and the groups that produced them:

▪ Early 2000s: The bipartisan Fromhold/Cox committee

▪ 2006: Washington Learns

▪ 2007: The Joint Task Force on Basic Education Finance

▪ 2009: The Quality Education Council

▪ 2011: Compensation Technical Working Group

▪ 2012: The Joint Task Force on Education Funding

But apparently none of these are considered relevant now.

This does, however, show how long the state’s education funding system has been deemed inadequate.

When a bipartisan work group got together last year to prepare a funding plan for this session, those involved reportedly realized they lacked data that showed how much local levy money was used to pay salaries of basic education teachers. So here we are, seemingly starting from scratch with a new education task force.

It is a shame that information wasn’t gathered long before now.

Legislators have known since the 2012 Supreme Court’s McCleary decision that the state of Washington has been failing to fulfill its constitutional obligation to amply fund basic, K-12 education. Currently, school districts must use local tax money to make up the difference, but that has led to an unfair system statewide where some students who live in wealthier areas are given a higher quality education than those who live in poor communities.

In order to spur lawmakers on, the Supreme Court has decided to hold lawmakers in contempt for failing to figure out an adequate education funding plan, and has imposed a fine of $100,000 a day. But few people believed the Legislature would be able to hammer out a proposal during this short, 60-day session.

State Budget Director David Schumacher even said early in the session that nobody expected lawmakers to meet the requirements of the McCleary decision until 2017 because the court set a 2018 deadline.

Nothing like calling it close. That seems to be the way our Legislature operates, however.

As of this writing, Senate Bill 6195 is waiting for Gov. Jay Inslee’s signature, and then the new education task force can get started. Those who serve on this panel have a huge responsibility.

Next year, the only way lawmakers will be able to fix the state’s education funding system is if there is a plan well in hand, and with bipartisan support, before it is introduced.

Otherwise, with a budget to be hammered out next year, lawmakers will have a tough time coming to an agreement and they will miss their long-awaited deadline.

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Our Voice: Education funding should be further along."