By Pat Jenkins
The Dispatch
The Bethel and Eatonville school districts are among public school systems statewide that are hoping Washington’s lawmakers will spare them from a looming financial and education “crisis.”
School officials are worried about the so-called levy cliff, a situation in which local school levies are scheduled to expire next January and revert back to lowertax collections. Unless the Legislature extends school districts’ authority to maintain levies at existing levels, districts stand to lose millions of dollars. Meanwhile, legislators are still short of meeting the state Supreme Court order – issued in 2012 -- to fully fund public education by 2018.
With the 2017 session of the Legislature underway and no clear indication of when a new court-mandated funding system will be in place, school leaders say an extension of the existing levy limits is necessary to avoid big holes in their budgets that could result in layoffs of teachers and other education reductions.
Washington’s schools could collectively lose more than $220 million unless the levy cliff is averted, Bethel School District superintendent Tom Seigel testified during a recent legislative hearing in Olympia.
The Eatonville School District alone faces projected shortfalls of $2 million-plus, according to superintendent Krestin Bahr. She has called the predicament a “funding crisis” that will hurt the ability of her district to educate students because of potential layoffs of teachers and other cuts.
Districts got some good news last week when the House of Representatives approved a one-year extension of the current taxing authority for districts. The Senate’s approval, not yet given, is needed before the extension can take effect.
Challenges for public schools in many rural areas, such as Eatonville, include attracting and retaining staff and offering a wide selection of classes. Under a school-funding plan by Governor Jay Inslee, more than half of his proposed state budget is dedicated to education, a level that hasn't been reached since the early 1980s.
Inslee's senior education policy adviser, Deb Merle, said the governor wants to meet the needs of rural schools.
“His overall mission is about kids and not about districts, not about where they live,” she said.
Bethel School Board member Warren Smith Sr., speaking at a pro-education rally in Renton last month, said school board members “want to make decisions based on the best educational outcomes for our students. We can’t do that when inaction in Olympia keeps us from having the tools we need to keep our schools appropriately staffed and operating. Failure to extend the existing levy limit will preclude us from making student-based decisions.”
Bahr believes Eatonville’s district leaders have a "good relationship" with legislators, and she said she is "sure" the lawmakers understand the potential impact of the funding issues. She and School Board members have testified on the issue before legislative committees.
The state Senate’s Republican Party members last Friday called for a new statewide property tax of $1.80 per $1,000 of assessed valuation as a funding source for schools.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal said he hopes the House and Senate will “create a bipartisan solution” for school funding.
Grace Swanson of theWNPA Olympia Bureau, a reporting internship sponsored by the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, contributed to this report.
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