ML school board mulls state school budget changes

MOSES LAKE — While the state legislature’s recent budget is designed to increase state funding for public education — by raising the state school levy and significantly lowering the cap on local school taxes — the Moses Lake School Board spent Thursday evening contemplating the consequences of the new budget.

“There’s no doubt this budget invests more in education,” said Superintendent Josh Meek. “It takes aggressive steps, but puts in additional guidelines.”

At the end of June, the state legislature passed a two-year, $25.5 billion school budget designed to fix inadequacies in school funding found by the state Supreme Court in early 2012 that the state legislature had failed “to make ample provision for the education of all children” in Washington as mandated by the preamble of Article IX of the state constitution.

Meek told members of the school board that much of the new funding scheme — which raises the statewide school levy to $2.70 per $1,000 of assessed value while reducing the cap on the local tax levy to $1.50 (Moses Lake schools have a current operating levy of $4.50) — will be phased in over two years beginning with the 2018-19 school year.

However, in addition to the tax changes intended to fund teacher salaries entirely from Olympia, Meek said the measure further increases central control and uncertainty how new state funding mechanisms will work and what kind of strings are going to come with the news state funding.

“Our current levy raises about $18 million, and the revision lowers us to $5.5 million. That’s a $12.5 million difference that is theoretically coming from an increase in the state tax,” Meek said. “It’s a game changer. In a $100 million budget, 12 percent has shifted in a way that’s unknown.”

Other changes made as part of the “McCleary Fix” involve higher starting salaries for teachers, mandated smaller K-3 class sizes, a shifting of teacher benefits from the union to the state, and a requirement that the Office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) approve all local school tax levies prior to going on the ballot.

“Our existing (maintenance and operation) levy expires in 2018, and we need to start talking about levy planning,” Meek said. “We’re going to be one of the first districts to go OSPI with a levy to approve.”

“How long is it going to take them to approve 295 school districts?” asked school board member Vicki Groff.

According to Meek, the new state school budget wipes out the state’s current salary schedule and sets a new minimum yearly salary for starting teachers of $40,000 as well as a new maximum salary of $90,000, both expected to be reached by the 2019-20 school year. It also takes teacher health care out of the hands of the Washington Education Association (WEA) and makes it a state benefit.

Meek explained that under the current health insurance arrangement, the WEA offers several health insurance options to pick from. The state plan will have only one option, leaving some teachers who work in smaller school districts worried about access to health care.

“Employees of school districts in rural communities are very concerned,” Meek said.

A portion of the increased teacher pay is designed to offset higher housing costs, Meek said, allowing districts with higher costs of living to pay their teachers more. Moses Lake has been included as one of those higher cost school districts, but Meek noted that additional funding phases out over five years.

“Maybe they expect the state’s housing problem to be resolved then?” the superintendent asked.

The Moses Lake schools, which are already struggling for space, are going to be very hard hit by the state’s new cap on K-3 class size at 17 students. Meek noted that while the state mandates those new class sizes, it does not provide additional funding to help districts create the space for those smaller classes.

And Moses Lake will also receive additional funding given to “high poverty” schools and districts, but that money comes with some of the shortest strings Olympia has.

“All of our schools qualify by state definitions,” he said. “But that money comes with the strictest rules, and we will have to look at and examine carefully how to spend all of that money.”

Echoing what was likely the sentiment of many school board members, Susan Freeman — whose term ends in 2019 — leaned back in her chair, stared at the ceiling, and sighed.

“I’m kind of discouraged in the reduction of local control,” she said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.