Washington’s Supreme Court justices seem baffled and frustrated at a Tuesday hearing on whether the state government is now adequately funding education.
Justices asked: What do the plaintiffs in the McCleary case want the court to actually do? Justices also asked: How can the state government mathematically prove it actually met the requirements set by the court’s 2012 McCleary ruling that Washington is not meeting its constitutional duty to adequately fund basic education for Grades K-3?
Both sides’ attorneys danced around those questions. Justices were obviously frustrated with their vague answers. The bottom line is that neither the state nor the plaintiffs can give a solid dollar figure for how much is still needed to meet the McCleary requirements.
For the past five years, Washington’s Legislature has fought internally about how to provide “ample” funding for the state’s schools as required by the state constitution, which the supreme court to rule is not happening. In late June 2017, Democrats and Republicans came up with a 620-page compromise bill that largely involved this issues behind closed doors. Most legislators did not have a chance to read the bill before they passed it on June 30 to avoid a partial state government shutdown.
A significant part of that compromise was a major overhaul in how state property are levied across the state, meaning some school districts are seeing tax cuts and others, including many in the Puget Sound area, are seeing property tax increases.
Part of that compromise spending is going into effect this current school year and the rest will be installed in the 2018-2019 school year. “There are a lot of moving parts that have to be in place in a choreographed sequence. … Our contention is that the funding mechanism is in place now,” deputy state solicitor general Alan Copsey told the justices.
Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst questioned the Legislature’s pace with its latest actions. She described the state’s position as, “We not going to do it all. We’ll do more later.”
Meanwhile, Tom Ahearne, attorney for the parents who are the plaintiffs in the McCleary case, argued that the state has no calculated figures locked in to prove it has appropriated enough money to meet the McCleary standards. Also, the state has not proven it has increased teacher salaries enough to be competitive in today’s market, he said. And he argued that there is still a shortage of teachers that doesn’t have allocated state money to address.
Ahearne described the Legislature’s June 30 compromise bill as “something they threw together at the last hour to avoid a government shutdown” with no scrutiny on whether the financial figures actually work.
However, Ahearne could not provide a specific dollar figure to the justices on what the plaintiffs believe should be appropriated. After the hearing, Ahearne said that, while a legislative task force made some calculations in 2012, the Legislature never adopted a formal dollar figure to shoot for. He said the 2012 ruling would require an extra $2.1 billion to $2.9 billion each year above the 2012 education funding levels. While the Legislature has increased education funding since then this year’s property tax shifts, inflation, and a generally better grasp on what is needed have clouded up the calculations to the point that no one has a solid dollar number figured out, he said.
Aherena’s current goal is to get the Supreme Court to declare the Legislature is still not complying with the ruling.
That leads to another question that justices said they are wrestling with: What can they actually do with a noncomplying Legislature?
Right now, the Supreme Court has been fining the Legislature $100,000 a day for not complying with the McCleary ruling—an empty gesture because the Legislature pays the money to its own coffers, which are then recycled for whatever legislators want to spend on.
One option would be to order the Legislature to fully fund the McCleary obligations at the expense of taking money away from other matters such as social services and health. House and Senate Republicans support this approach. Another option would be to eliminate every tax break and force legislators to reinstate them one-by-one while keeping enough off the books to ensure the McCleary requirements are met. This would be a very drastic measure because the state has more than 600 tax breaks. The Supreme Court is not legally allowed to get into individual allocations and revenue decisions—which are the duties reserved for the Legislature.
Justice Sheryl McCloud wondered whether the Legislature could fix any McCleary shortfalls in 2018’s 60-day short session. The Legislature normally tackles major budget matters in the 120-day main sessions that occur in odd-numbered years such as 2017. Since the 2012 McCleary ruling, those main budget sessions have all deadlocked and extended beyond 150 days each
Copsey replied: “It depends on what you ask the Legislature to do. (If more than $1 billion is needed that) is way beyond what you can ask for in a supplemental budget,” A supplemental budget is usually minor tweaks in an even-numbered year.
However after the hearing, Rep Gerald Pollet, D-Seattle said: “It’s news to the legislators that they can’t appropriate dollars in an even-numbered year.”
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