Our Voice: Thumbs up, Thumbs down

Voter support of schools

Every couple of years, school districts have to return to the voters and ask them to renew critical operation levies. In general, they aren’t asking to increase taxes, they’re just asking voters to continue supporting them at the same level they have for the past two years.

You’d have to live under a rock in this state not to understand the education here is sorely underfunded. So it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to take money away from their local schools in order to reduce their personal taxes. But they exist. They exist in fairly decent numbers. And they turn out to vote.

While explaining the levy request to the editorial board, one school superintendent said traditionally, 3,000 to 4,000 citizens vote against the levy every time. That’s not unique to this district. Levy supporters know opponents will vote and that the tragic loss of 15 percent to 20 percent of their budget will only be averted if community-based levy support organizations get out the “yes” vote.

Those groups in our communities did that. This week voters in all eight area school districts renewed their levies. Richland’s levy passed with 72 percent of the vote favoring renewal. The Kennewick levy had 65 percent approval, while Pasco’s levy passed with 57 percent. The levy in the North Franklin School District had 63 percent approval, and the Finley levy garnered 64 percent approval. Kiona-Benton City voters passed their levy with 54 percent. Kahlotus and Paterson districts had the highest approval rates at 75 percent.

Inslee’s Cabinet in turmoil

Republicans, and one Democrat who caucuses with the Republicans, ignited a political firestorm last week when they voted against confirming the governor’s reappointment of Lynn Peterson to lead the state Department of Transportation.

The Washington state Senate can confirm or reject gubernatorial appointments to the Cabinet, and appointees can serve if the Senate takes no action to confirm. The last Senate rejection of a an appointee in the state was in 1998.

Republican senators point to delays and problems with multiple transportation projects during Peterson’s term. Inslee, a Democrat who is up for re-election this year, angrily called the move election year politics and said senate Republicans are out of control.

Inslee also blamed politics for this weekend’s resignation of his Department of Corrections Secretary Dan Pacholke.

In his resignation letter, Pacholke said he hoped his resignation would satisfy “the politicans who would use this tragic event for their political purposes.” The tragic event he’s refering to is the early release of more than 3,000 prisoners since 2002 because of a computer glitch that miscalculated sentences. At least two deaths have been tied to the releases.

The Senate Law and Justice Committee has hired an investigator and issued legislative subpoenas for emails, reports and data from the DOC and the governor’s office on the issue.

The first member of Inslee’s Cabinet to announce his departure was Kevin Quigley, head of the Department of Social and Health Services, who resigned in early January.

Recently, it was reported that patients at Western State mental hospital have assaulted hundreds of employees resulting in millions of dollars in medical costs. Last year, the federal government repeatedly threatened to cut millions in funding to the hospital after inspections found systemwide failures.

Blame election-year politics for the departures if you want, but you can’t blame that for the failures and scandals that led to them.

This story was originally published February 10, 2016 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Our Voice: Thumbs up, Thumbs down."