Decisions on school finance in the next legislative session could dramatically hurt Snohomish County schools. The leading proposal provides more state salary allocations to urban areas than rural schools and allows urban schools far greater levy resources.
Senate Bill 6130 makes regional salary funding part of basic education to cover high cost urban areas. It also slashes levy equalization.
SB 6130 addresses the Washington state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision. The ruling bans use of local levies to fund “basic education” and requires the Legislature fulfill the constitutional “paramount duty of the state to make ample provisions for the education of all children within its borders.”
Poorer areas need levy equalization and equal state salary funding to remain competitive. Cutting equalization widens gaps in tax rates needed to raise local levies. Poorer districts need as much as ten times the rates of urban areas for comparable levy funding.
Rural areas also suffer greater teacher turnover. Higher salary funding in urban areas makes it worse.
SB 6130’s salary proposal contradicts research commissioned by the Legislature. The Compensation TWGroup extensively evaluated salary proposals and attrition. Its 2012 report “recommends continued implementation of a single statewide allocation schedule for all staffing categories with no regional adjustments,” stating “costs of hiring variances are not a state responsibility for basic education.”
Urban schools’ claims of greater difficulty retaining teachers contradict state and national research that shows wealthier areas have the least turnover while rural areas have the greatest. The Office of Financial Management, in a 2000 study, showed urban areas cost more, but found no evidence it led to higher attrition.
Urban areas don’t need salary supplements to retain teachers. Why make it part of “basic education”? Guaranteeing equal buying power isn’t a state responsibility. Getting a qualified teacher in every classroom is. Regional salary funding makes retaining teachers more difficult for rural schools.
Research shows teachers move for a greater chance of professional success in districts with less family poverty and greater resources. Higher levies in wealthier areas provide smaller classes, and more training, counselors, therapists and assistants to help teachers. SB 6130 leaves huge differences in levies.
SB 6130 proposes two-tiered levies. Any district that raises more than $1,500 per student from a $1 per $1,000 assessed value tax rate would have taxes capped at $1 per $1,000 assessed valuation. All others could pass up to $1.50 per $1,000. Districts not receiving the state average levy per student from $1.50 per $1,000 would receive a state match to guarantee the average.
SB 6130 leaves levies varied, not equalized. If SB 6130 was law now, districts receiving the match would be limited to $890 per student, this year’s average. The wealthiest, at $1 per $1,000 valuation, could raise up to three times more than districts capped at $890.
Snohomish County’s school levies would be varied if SB 6130 was law now. Levy equalization would have been dropped in Snohomish and Everett, losing $2.6 million and $4 million, respectively. Monroe loses $1.9 million, Sultan loses $650,000, Marysville $4.5 million, Arlington $1.4 million, and Darrington $600,000.
Over 75 districts statewide could have raised over $1,500 per student and the wealthiest over $2,500 per student. Edmonds, Mukilteo and Darrington could each raise over $1,300, while most Snohomish districts would be capped at the state average, $890.
Levies will matter. Some proposals exclude items from “basic education,” like seventh periods in high school or professional development, so levies can pay for them. If wealthier districts raise substantially more levy money than poorer districts, huge service differences will remain.
Instead of SB 6130, the state should reduce levy limits from 28 percent of districts’ budgets to 14 percent and leave equalization as is, guaranteeing all districts similar per student levy funds with the same tax rate. The top tax rate for Snohomish County schools this year would have been $1.54 per $1,000, similar to SB 6130’s top rate, but with no equalization cuts, resulting in comparable per student levy funds for all.
Continuing equal state salary funding and levy equalization as both are done now is essential to rural schools.
Neal Kirby is a former state representative, a current Centralia School Board director, a retired principal and formed the committee for Levy Equalization in 1985, passing the bill in 1987.
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