Category Archives: What’s New

The State has filed its required brief with the Washington State Supreme Court, contending the biennial budget adopted by the Legislature at the end of June has met our constitution’s ample funding mandate and the court orders in the McCleary case.” Read the brief NEWS filed in late August. Read the State’s brief.

Despite claims from elected officials that the recently-adopted biennial budget “fully funds K-12 education for the first time in 30 years,” the State has once again fallen short of complying with the court-ordered mandates of McCleary (as further detailed in our FAQs). Here are a few examples:

• “$7.3 billion”: While some headlines note a “$7.3 billion” increase in K-12 funding, the State’s own accounting of McCleary items in the school year starting September 2018 reports a less than $1.5 billion increase (before subtracting the local levy funding taken away in the middle of that 2018-2019 school year). A $1.5 billion increase that school year is not compliance with the $7 billion increase assured by the State’s own court testimony and reports. (See the chart at the bottom of the FAQs: $16,000/pupil – $9,024/pupil = $6,976/pupil. $6,976 x over 1 million pupils = nearly $7 billion.)
• Implementation deadline: The Supreme Court’s December 2012 ruling set 2018 as a “firm deadline for full constitutional compliance” — and then in 2016 gave the State eight extra months to achieve full implementation by adopting the September 1, 2018 deadline date the State had promised. The State itself, on the first page of its analysis of HB 2242, acknowledges it is not fully implemented until the 2019-2020 school year.
• Compensation increase: The State assured the Supreme Court that it would fund the increase determined by the State’s 2261 Technical Compensation Work Group, and the State subsequently confirmed to the Court that the group’s final report determined an increase of at least $2.1 billion a year would be required to attract and retain competent school personnel. The biennium budget funds nothing close to that.
• Property tax redistribution: The Supreme Court’s August 2015 Order expressly reminded the State that local levy reform is not part of its McCleary ruling. The 2017 Legislature nonetheless embarked on levy reform to make the underfunding of its public schools more uniform by taking local levy money away from school districts in the middle of the 2018-2019 school year and distributing increased State property tax revenue more uniformly (the levy swipe/swap). More uniform underfunding does not comply with the McCleary ruling’s ample funding mandate.

Please contact us with any questions you may have regarding the 2017 Legislature’s “compliance” with our constitution’s ample funding mandate and the court orders in the McCleary case.

In a memo sent to every legislator the first week of the session, NEWS Board President Michael Dunn explained what the McCleary decision really entails. He urged lawmakers to “have the courage in this legislative session to obey the Supreme Court’s rulings and finally halt the State’s violation of Washington children’s constitutional right to an amply funded education.” Read the memo.

Kelsey McCleary, daughter of the co-plaintiffs in the school funding lawsuit, penned a letter to her legislators expressing her disappointment in their lack of progress in fully funding K-12 education and articulating her hope for a better future. Read the letter.

The State claims it has made progress in fulfilling the mandates of the McCleary case. The facts from the State’s own reports and court testimony prove legislative action has barely moved the needle – and the gap is still very wide. View a chart that lays it all out.