By The Herald Editorial Board
There would be far greater costs if the lawsuit is ultimately successful, but a suit filed this summer against seven school districts, including Everett, by the state schools superintendent has already cost the state and the school districts — and the taxpayers for each — about $165,000.
Randy Dorn, the outgoing chief of the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, sued Everett schools, along with the Seattle, Bellevue, Spokane, Tacoma, Puyallup and Vancouver’s Evergreen districts, alleging that the districts were illegally using local levy revenue for a significant portion of teacher, staff and administrator salaries. Everett, for example, uses about 85 cents or every levy dollar for such costs.
Dorn’s correct that that’s an illegal use of local levies. The state Supreme Court, in what’s been called the McCleary decision, ruled in 2012 that the state alone was responsible for funding basic education — in other words, teacher salaries — using “dependable and regular sources” of revenue. Local property tax levies, the court said, didn’t count because they depend on local voter support that can change and, because they’re based on property values, which vary widely district by district and have created inequitable funding among districts.
Everett’s use of levy funds has allowed it to pay teachers better than most school districts, but Everett also has become one of the top districts for high school graduation rates and student achievement.
But Dorn was wrong to file suit against the districts, who, with the consent of the Legislature, have taken on greater responsibility for funding education while lawmakers have taken several years to find a funding solution to McCleary.
At the time Dorn said the lawsuit was necessary to push the Legislature into “doing the right thing” and resolving school funding issues and ending reliance on the levy. But it’s overkill, an unnecessary step that instead threatens to force the named districts into layoffs and other cuts if the suit is successful.
Fortunately, a King County Superior Court judge put the lawsuit on hold pending the outcome of the upcoming legislative session. And Chris Reykdal, who’ll take office as the next schools chief in January said during his campaign that he would likely seek to remove the state education agency as a plaintiff. Reykdal said he would make that decision soon after taking office. That won’t necessarily end the suit; several parents remain as plaintiffs, and Dorn has pledged to lead a fundraising effort to continue the fight.
We encourage Reykdal to pull his office from the suit, and we’d ask that the parents and Dorn do the same.
Earlier this week The Herald’s Jerry Cornfield reported that Dorn’s office has so far spent more than $77,000 on outside attorneys; state Attorney General Bob Ferguson declined to take the case. And the school districts have spent a similar amount defending themselves, about $76,000. Everett’s share is about $15,000.
That might not sound like a significant amount, but as Everett Superintendent Gary Cohn told Cornfield, that’s $15,000 that could have gone to tutoring, laptops, English Language Learner services or even soccer balls.
And it’s unnecessary.
Dorn bragged that “because of what I did people are actually talking about levies.”
People — and we’ll included lawmakers as people — have been talking about levies for a while now. The Legislature knows it must make significant progress in satisfying its mandate under McCleary to amply fund education and end the over-reliance on school levies. Legislators know they have a deadline of 2018, and to meet that deadline, a solution this year is necessary.
Throwing another lawsuit into this mess won’t get the job done any earlier. And making Everett and the other school districts pay the price if the Legislature doesn’t meet that deadline only makes matters worse.
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