Report: Rising costs for WA school districts outpace state funding

By Grace Deng / Washington State Standard

In recent years, districts are spending a lot more money to keep Washington’s schools running — but state funding isn’t keeping up.

That’s according to a new report from the League of Education Voters, which found school districts have increased spending on staff by 19.7% between the 2019-20 and 2022-23 school years.

“We’re using an outdated prototypical school funding model to try to take care of kids in 2024,” said one rural school district superintendent quoted in the report. “It’s like trying to use a geometry equation to solve a calculus problem. They don’t match.”

Washington has 295 school districts total. The report authors say 28 were surveyed that “represent the diversity of school districts across the state” in terms of enrollment, location, racial demographics and other factors.

Districts are spending well above state-funded levels for operating staff, especially for office support and custodians — 40% of whom are hired using more funds than allocated by state lawmakers. Districts were also spending about 5% more on teachers and 11% more on teachers’ aides, or paraeducators, than they’re funded for by the state.

Employee salary and benefit costs make up over 80% of district budgets. Spending on other areas that help districts keep the lights on has increased even more than staff spending.

“The cost of literally everything that schools spend money on is going up,” said Jacob Vela, chief policy officer at the League of Education Voters.

Food costs were up 36%, insurance costs were up 48%, repair costs were up 54% and natural gas costs were up a whopping 76% from the 2019-2020 to 2022-2023 school years.

Over 60% of the districts surveyed in the most recent school year said inadequate state funding for special education was a “significant and growing challenge.” While lawmakers increased funding for special education this year, it’s still capped at a certain percentage of a school’s population.

The report also notes that district needs are changing as schools get more diverse: There are about 50 more languages spoken by students in Washington schools than there were 15 years ago, Vela said.

“What’s being asked of schools, what’s being provided to students and families looks very different than it did 20 years ago,” he added.

Students of color, low-income students and English language learners have all become a much greater proportion of school demographics in the past decade too. Districts are hiring more staff to support these needs: From the 2019-2020 to 2022-2023 school year, statewide hiring of social workers grew 63%.

Schools in Washington are largely funded by the Legislature, although they also receive money from local levies and the federal government.

In 2012, the state Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling known as the McCleary decision, finding that the Legislature had failed in its duty to adequately fund public schools. After that, lawmakers changed how schools were funded and bolstered their funding.

But the report suggests Washington is still failing to comply with the McCleary decision.

“The Washington State Supreme Court has clearly determined special education and a competitive wage for K-12 staff is part of ‘basic education,’” the report’s authors wrote. “Despite this, many districts use local levy funding to pay staff salaries and to fund special education services for students.”

“Many superintendents shared that they believe the conditions that led to the McCleary court ruling have been recreated with how districts rely on local levies,” the report continues.

This is creating an issue for rural schools that don’t have a lot of levy money to rely on, Vela said. Some rural schools interviewed feel as if they’re becoming “feeder schools” for larger schools: Early career teachers are getting experience at rural schools and then moving to larger schools for the pay.

“It’s a worrying combination of factors that we need to be aware of,” Vela said of the current school funding environment.

In a statement to the Standard, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction said there’s “no question that the Legislature made significant progress in funding our public schools in alignment with the McCleary decision” but that the investments made only “temporarily filled the hole of prior budget neglect.”

“We are all feeling the effects of inflation, and schools are no different,” the office said. “Our state still has work to do. Superintendent [Chris] Reykdal’s budget and policy requests for the 2025 Legislature will aim to address these financial challenges.”

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