News / Northwest

Washington House passes education proposal

By Rachel La Corte, Associated Press

Published: February 22, 2017, 2:34pm

OLYMPIA — The House on Wednesday approved its education funding proposal, but majority Democrats haven’t yet decided how to pay for the plan, which has a price tag of more than $7 billion over the next four years.

The bill ultimately passed on a 50-47 party line vote after lawmakers had to redo the vote because two Republicans initially accidentally vote in favor. The chamber’s action comes just weeks after the Republican-led Senate passed its own plan. Both sides will now need to negotiate a final compromise.

“Is it perfect, no. Do we have a lot of work to do? We absolutely do,” said Democratic Rep. Kristine Lytton. “This is really hard work but I know we’re up to the task.”

Lawmakers are working to comply with a 2012 state Supreme Court ruling that they must fully fund the state’s basic education system. The court has set a deadline of Sept. 1, 2018 fully fund education, but has said that the details of how to do that – as well as how lawmakers will pay for it – must be in place before the Legislature adjourns this year.

Local Angle

Vancouver Rep. Paul Harris questioned whether the Democrats’ education proposal carving out more than $7 billion over the next four years is a serious plan.

The proposal aimed at helping the state end its practice of chronically underfunding the public school system passed the House on Wednesday on a party-line vote.

Harris, a Republican, noted that the Democrats don’t detail how they plan to fund their education proposal.

“We are discussing a bill that would cost billions of dollars, and if the intent is to use taxes to pay for it, then Washington taxpayers deserve to know where the money is going to come from,” Harris said in a statement. “There has yet to be a vote taken or even scheduled on any legislation that would fund this plan. If the majority party does not have the confidence to bring the funding pieces forward and show us they have the votes to pay for it, then I am confident this is not a meaningful plan.”

Later, on the phone with The Columbian, Harris said now is the time to negotiate. Senate Republicans passed an education funding proposal plan about two weeks ago.

“Today is the kickoff,” Harris said. “We’ve all played our first card. Now, let’s start working together and see if we can resolve this issue.”

Harris is also spearheading a plan the House Republicans can support.

Rep. Sharon Wylie, D-Vancouver, said the first goal is to agree on what must be funded, and to what degree, on issues such as teachers’ wages.

“Money to fund what is agreed upon will first come from cuts, efficiencies and resistance to new programs in other areas,” Wylie said. “When that effort is insufficient, then agreement in any new revenue or additional cuts must be achieved.”

Wylie said one of the looming issues is how to end an overreliance on school property tax levies. The Democrats’ plan would lower the reliance on local school levies, but not completely end the practice as in the Senate proposal.

Former teacher and current state Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, said the proposal has a lot of positive components. It invests $199 million in career and technical education and skill centers. It also boosts teachers’ salaries and cuts professional development days.

“I am pleased with our House plan to fund our schools and am glad we can get to the next stage, which is negotiating with the Senate,” Stonier said.

— Lauren Dake

Lawmakers have already put more than $2 billion toward the issue since the ruling, but the biggest piece remaining of the court order is figuring out how much the state must provide for teacher salaries. School districts currently pay a big chunk of those salaries with local property-tax levies.

Unlike the Senate plan, which would replace local school levies with a statewide uniform rate earmarked for schools, the House plan would lower the local levy rate, but not eliminate them completely. Similar to the Republican Senate plan, the House Democratic plan increases beginning teacher salaries to $45,500. But unlike the Senate plan, the Democratic proposal then requires those beginning salaries to increase by 10 percent after three years.

Several Republican amendments were rejected, including one that would have made the bill null and void “unless the Legislature specifically enacts new revenues to fully fund it.”

While the Democrats’ haven’t offered specifics on how to pay for it, they have previously noted several potential sources of revenue, including closure of tax exemptions, changes to the state property and business and occupation taxes and a new capital gains tax.

Republicans said the amendment didn’t mean they wanted more taxes — they just wanted to be able to talk about Democrats’ current lack of a revenue plan. Democrats say that they wanted to focus on the policy first, then figure out the particulars of funding as they continue working on a budget proposal.

Republican Rep. Paul Harris said that without a funding package, it’s impossible to know whether the overall plan fully funds education, as required.

“So I question whether it’s a serious plan,” he said.

One Republican amendment that was approved allows school districts that don’t have adequate facilities to lower class sizes for kindergarten to third grade to still receive state funds that can instead be used to hire additional staff.

Related Stories