Ten state legislators are sponsoring a bill that claims allowing regional cost-of-living salary increases for teachers “is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, or support of the state government and its existing public institutions.”
HB 1484 would permit school districts to run school levies that permanently increase property taxes by as much as $0.75 per $1,000 assessed value (about $165 a year for a house worth $220,000). The new tax would pay for regional cost-of-living salary increases (on top of the increases provided by Initiative 732), and more education programs (as defined by Initiative 728).
The bill violates or overrides three constitutional provisions put in place to protect taxpayers. These require that 1) a minimum of 40 percent of the voters who participated in the last general election turn out to vote on school levies; 2) levies earn super-majority approval of at least 60 percent; and 3) levies be reauthorized every four years (Article VII, Sections 1 and 2).
By declaring emergency, HB 1484 sponsors prohibit voters from repealing the tax through referendum, and they allow counties to run special (sometimes known as “stealth”) levy elections. The legislation also exempts the new levies from the increase caps that govern other regular levies, and it opens a Pandora’s Box of constitutional issues related to funding equalization across districts.
When legislators temporarily suspended funding for I-732 and amended I-728 to plug gaping budget holes in 2003, members of the education establishment and teachers’ union loudly accused them of thwarting the will of the people and demanded reinstatement. Legislators refused; most are well aware that voters approved the initiatives (in 2000) on the explicit promise that neither would require new or increased taxes.
This prompted education and union officials to draft their own tax increase proposal (Initiative 884) for the November 2004 ballot. Despite a multi-million-dollar campaign, the measure went down in flames, 61-39 percent.
Foiled again, they’re now teaming up with a more willing legislative body.
Washington citizens have spoken loudly and clearly. They’re beginning to question the decades-old claim that “more money” results in higher student achievement. Besides, the state has $1.5 billion in new revenue to spend this budget cycle. Spenders say it’s not nearly enough, but voters say prioritize.
“No” means “no.” It will be interesting to see who’s listening.
Hat tip to SP reader Dana McWilliams for pointing out HB 1484 today.
Posted by Marsha Michaelis at February 04, 2005 04:05 PM | Email ThisBTW...60% required for passage on its face is undemocratic -- it means a NO vote counts a lot more than a YES vote. It was put in that way in the 1940s (60 YEARS AGO) to protect some landowners when the situation was very different.
Raise taxes? Make it so!
Take away citizen input on tax increases? Make it so!
Take away homes so government employees can gorge at the public trough? Make it so!
Just shut up and pay your taxes. The Democrats know better than you, and _you know you can't do anything about it._
Posted by: steve miller on February 4, 2005 04:25 PMRemember folks, audits of Government are unnecessary. There is no waste to cut. Raising taxes are the first and olny way.
Jeez these people are cruel. They are just killig me.
Posted by: Brad on February 4, 2005 04:26 PMIs that evil too? Allwoing voters to decide whether to tax themselves?
Or the republicans are against that too. The people shouldn't have the right to decide...only elected republicans can be trusted???
Q: How do you know when a demo-rat is lying?
A: His/her lips move.
I don't recall any other employers paying such bonuses so their employees could live closer to work.
This is one pricey little bennie!
Posted by: Bette Filley on February 4, 2005 04:48 PMGo Revote
Great victories today! Yippee! Start packing your bags CG
Posted by: GS on February 4, 2005 04:48 PMThis is all so confusing. How exactly do we have to put it if we want to send the message that we do not want them to raise taxes?
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on February 4, 2005 04:49 PM1) Their property tax increase for districts for teacher housing allowances and the like only mean that teachers in our rural districts will demand local property owners pay more for their wages as well. It gives a disproportionate advantage to kids living in wealthy school districts versus those in poorer areas, which violates the state's constitution.
2) Their attempt at getting rid of the 60% supermajority rule for levies is just a way for the state legislature to finance local school districts more with property tax than sales tax. The minute they make school levies a simple majority, is the minute the state democrats take another 1/2 billion from education and put it towards social services. Their theme is to make property owners pay more taxes. Again, the poorer districts will not have an equal education, unconstitutional.
3)Do you ever hear the dems wanting to increase school funding when it's not related to giving most of it all to teachers? How about using that money to allow the districts to reduce class sizes? Or let us use it for more books. Won't happen with the dems.
The rate of spending on public education in this state has dramatically decreased relative to spending on social programs and entitlements, all on the watch of the democrats and the teachers' union. We should be more critical of them using the funds elsewhere instead of using the available funds on education.
The problem isn't that if you throw more money at it, the education will be better, we've seen that over the last 2 decades. The solution is to throw more money at it, but only where it should be thrown and not where some selfish leaders of the teachers' union think it should be thrown.
Posted by: Doug on February 4, 2005 04:50 PMAbout poorer districts. Teachers in rural districts are paid exceedingly well relative to others in the area. Those in richer districts are way down on the list. Bellevue's teacher average less than 5 years axperience since they can't afford to stay on and teach.
Equal educaiton doesn't mean equal dollars...costs are very different. You are probably in a rural district that benefits greatly from this unequal situation..teachers are paid well, they probably stay for a long time and you get equalization from the state.
3--the voters said to do that but Rossi was instrumental in making sure it wasn't funded....
Posted by: jim on February 4, 2005 04:56 PMI filled out my ballot a few days ago. It had one item on it. A request to renew an existing levy. Why could that not have been on my November ballot?
How much money is wasted by having these levy only elections?
They do these elections like this and complain because not enough people vote. They are creating their own problem.
Posted by: Vince Callaway on February 4, 2005 04:58 PMAnd...why is it that jails only require 50%? Or sports stadiums? IT's just plain crazy at this time and place.
Posted by: jim on February 4, 2005 04:58 PMAverage per-pupil annual expense for K-12 public education in our state: $9,439. Straight from the Superintendent of Public Instruction:
http://www.effwa.org/pdfs/StateEdSpending.pdf
Average that out over a twelve-year education: $113,268 per child.
Posted by: Marsha Richards on February 4, 2005 05:03 PMWe do not get equalization. The dollars have gone down only because the lowsy Democrats in charge during that time have made it so. They have taken the increase in government spending and put it mostly towards other social programs instead of the 54% split favoring education under Republican control.
The demoncrats want to make property owners pay most of the burden for education so the demoncrats can spend the money on the Teachers' Union and on Social Programs and Government Workers so they can enlarge their political base.
The state legislature can pass laws that allow the state to spend more money on urban districts within reason, as long as they don't get a competitive advantage with better teachers as a result. But they won't do it because they don't want to pay sales tax dollars on education, they want to spend property tax dollars.
Hence their desire to eliminate the levy lid, eliminate the supermajority requirement, add years or to make pernament property tax levies and a whole host of other things that will take the responsibility of education away from them who want to spend the money elsewhere.
Posted by: Doug on February 4, 2005 05:08 PM"The bill violates or overrides three constitutional provisions put in place to protect taxpayers. These require that 1) a minimum of 40 percent of the voters who participated in the last general election turn out to vote on school levies; 2) levies earn super-majority approval of at least 60 percent; and 3) levies be reauthorized every four years (Article VII, Sections 1 and 2)."
jim misunderstands what Marsha Richards posted...therefore, jim needs to go. Anyone want to vote?
They don't want to do that.
They want to keep the revenue for the schools in their districts -- where the higher tax base that results from urban, commercial and industrial development makes it possible to collect higher levy amounts without unduly burdening residential property owners.
Their approach shortchanges the children in districts which don't have such high tax bases.
But they don't care. Their oaths to uphold the constitution mean nothing to them. Their claims of compassion for all the children are empty words.
Posted by: Micajah on February 4, 2005 05:12 PMWe've also trailed the national average -- heading down: http://www.educationvoters.org/school.funding/K-12%20Expenditure%20vs%20states.pdf
And it's gone down as part of the state budget (interesting, as it's the state's paramount duty): http://www.educationvoters.org/school.funding/K-12%20share%20of%20state%20operating.pdf
Your numbers include capital expenditures -- the non-capital $$$ has decreased over time.
Doug, it seems that eliminating the lid would allow local decision control -- isn't that an EFFWA and republican position? Let people decide for themselves? That's what gets me about cries of democratic socialism. The educational fudning system we have now keeps everyone at a low bar (can't let anyone raise the bar) since not everyone can raise the bar.
Well, that's a lot like the typical republican argument about democrats helping those in need.
Also, your figures include capital funding. Is that appropriate? Most states don't think so. Local dollars spent on building a school is hardly the same as $$ spent on educating kids,.
Property owners pay for the jails and the stadiums...why are they 50%? Property owners pay for city fees..why aren't they 60%? What's all this special non-democratic rules about schools?
"Property owners pay for the jails and the stadiums...why are they 50%? Property owners pay for city fees..why aren't they 60%? What's all this special non-democratic rules about schools?"
I'm glad we didn't vote you off yet, since that point is the only valid one I have seen you make. Why is that? I have no answer...
But I would still vote you off; just because...
As far as Republicans being "let the people decide", we most definitely are. You are twisting the argument to suit your purposes. We are not saying the people shouldn't be able to decide. We are saying that the rules concerning how the people decide are being thrown out to require a fewer number of people deciding for the whole.
Why is it fair that tax increases be passed only be a supermajority? I would argue that when a taking is involved (ie higher taxes) it is unfair the everyone if 50% plus 1 can take money from all of us. If a tax if worthwhile, you should be able to get 60% to agree with it. If you can't, then maybe there are issues that should be addresses. If you notice, even with a 60% required majority, most school levies pass anyway. When they don't pass it is because there are serious issues with the way the local schools are spending the money. Fix those issues, the levy passes the next time out.
Posted by: Calvin A on February 4, 2005 06:38 PMBy the argument about 50% +1 being unfair, heck that argument can apply to anything..including 50% + 1 making a certain person governor or president over all of us! That has incredible financial impact. Only people who can convince 60% to agree should be allowed to serve.
The logic is old, backwards and anti-democratic. The argument that taxes are different than other things falls flat on its logical face in today's world.
Jim --
Not so. As of the 2004 supplemental budget state funding for public schools from all state funds has increased, adjusted for inflation, from $3,959 in FY 1990 to a budgeted $4,438 in FY 2005.
For FY 1990 all state funds includes the state general fund, the Violence Reduction and Drug Enforcement Account, and the Public Safety and Education Account. (The latter two accounted for only about $13 million, mostly for school security activities.) For FY 2005 all state funds includes the state general fund (about $5.1 billion) and the Student Achievement Fund (about $196 million).
Nominal state funding per pupil from all state funds was $3,580 in FY 1990, and was a budgeted $5,411.
Note that the state does not budget for K-12 on a per pupil basis. The state funding formula is based primarily on staff costs. Funding per pupil is simply a calculation you make after the fact.
There has also been a lot of discussion here about how K-12 education has declined as a percent of the budget, or "lost out" to the funding of social services. The share that some function or agency gets of the total General Fund budget is a poor measure of state funding effort in that area. Because basic education is an entitlement, and almost 90% of state funding for public schools falls within that entitlement, the amount the state spends on public schools in any given period is driven mostly by enrollment trends. After a long period of very rapid growth in K-12 enrollment, we are in a period of time now in which growth has been quite slow, because the proportion of school-age children in the population is relatively small. That's just the demographic cycle we're in. Enrollment will continue to grow slowly until after 2010.
At the same time, caseloads in health care entitlement programs, particularly Medical Assistance, have been growing very rapidly, while the cost of providing services to those populations has been growing at double digit rates. Caseloads have also been rising rapidly in Corrections, and the costs of serving those caseloads have been rising. We've been putting a lot more people in prison and community supervision, and they've been getting a lot more expensive.
These trends mean that K-12 Education is going to decline as a share of the budget, almost no matter what you do. It is driven by demographics and economics, not policy. The Legislature could spend another $500 million on salaries (or whatever) in K-12 in the next biennium, and it still wouldn't change that "percent of the budget" number much.
Posters have also been saying that all these various things, good or bad, have been happening under the Democrats. Let's remember that Republicans have controlled the House, the Senate, or both chambers of the Legislature for a good portion of the last 10 years, so a share of whatever credit or blame is to be had accrues to them, too.
Posted by: J.A. on February 4, 2005 07:11 PMThe "supermajority" requirement (60 percent rather than a majority of 50 percent plus one vote) is only required for "excess" levies.
Excess levies are those levies which impose a property tax that -- when aggregated with the regular levies -- exceeds one percent of the market value of the property.
The supermajority requirement was put in the constitution to make it difficult to go above that limit. The state and the other taxing districts can get the regular levy of up to one percent of the property's value each year without meeting anything more than a simple majority vote (or a vote in the legislative body authorized to impose levies).
Not one example you (or anyone who agrees with you) give is an example of an excess property tax imposed on my home. That's why stadiums and all the rest of the examples you want to come up with don't require a supermajority -- they aren't being paid for through an excess property tax on my home.
If you want to fund the schools with taxes on rental cars, scratch lottery tickets, admission tickets to some local athletic event, or any other such thing, go right ahead.
If you want to fund the schools with an excess property tax on my home, you have to meet the supermajority requirement.
Even better, if you want more funding for schools, and you want it to come from property taxes, you can get it right now without changing the constitution or the statutes. Just get a simple majority of both houses of the legislature to raise the state's share of the property tax up to or near the constitutional limit ($3.60 per $1000 of assessed value).
Then use that money to provide a uniform system of schools for all children in this state.
Go ahead, I'm begging you -- ask your legislators to raise your taxes to provide for the schools in districts other than the one in which you live.
That's the state's "paramount duty" but none of the Democrats want to do it that way. Instead, they want to reduce state revenue to the schools and rely on local levies. Having pushed the limit on excess property taxes, they're now looking at the unused state regular levy authority -- and hoping to use that regular levy authority via this proposed law in their own districts rather than in the less affluent districts.
If pressed about the constitution's requirement to provide enough revenue from the state, as they were when they raised the levy lid a few years ago, I'm sure the Democrats would say now what was said in their committee hearing then: "We haven't been sued yet." (In the little bit of legislative history made available, that statement made it into the written record.)
The urban Democrats feel no obligation to honor their oaths to uphold the constitution's requirement that the legislature provide a uniform system of common schools for all children in this state.
This bill is yet more evidence of their willingness to provide only for their own districts and let the devil take the hindmost.
Posted by: Micajah on February 4, 2005 07:30 PMIs being a property owner in the same category of cigarette smoker or consumer of hard alcohol now? Of course in the state of king county, it's ok to screw land owners every which way but tuesday.
In fact if you don't own land you get to vote for these taxes 2 or 3 times in the same election.
Posted by: Andy on February 4, 2005 07:33 PM"it's ok to screw land owners every which way but tuesday."
I disagree, it includes Tuesday...(sigh)
Posted by: smegma on February 4, 2005 07:46 PMPosted by J.A. at February 4, 2005 07:44 PM
Nor do I, usually.
If it's true the school district gets $9.4k for each kid, then why do they need more money? If I had half that for my kids, I could fund them pretty well in private schools.
Oh, wait, I forget, I don't get to choose. I just have to pay, and pay, and pay - and the glitterati get to determine who gets my money.
Marx - Property is theft
Democrats = Let's steal your property.
The Thurston County decision which equalized school funding across the state subsitiuted one arbitrary boundary (the state) for another (a school district). But if you look at it, the school district in Pullman has more in common with the one in Moscow, ID than it does with the district in Issaquah.
Allowing local cost adjustments to school funding would not be bad if the local district had discretion about where to spend the money. Perhaps the urban districts would spend more on teacher salaries, and the rural districts would spend more on textbooks. It really doesn't matter as long as the local district has control.
If the legislature wants to give the option to assess extra taxes to local districts, then it should also void the state teachers contract, replacing it with a set of districtwide contracts. That way the teachers will likely get more money in urban districts, and the local voters will get more control of the schools.
Everybody wins, right?
Posted by: MIMIke on February 4, 2005 08:21 PMAnd why are people so willing to accept what schools turn out at $9.4k a year? If you paid $115k for your kid's education, would be be satisfied with what you got?
It's like Aaron's response to Moses: "I poured in this gold, and out came this calf."
Posted by: steve miller on February 4, 2005 08:23 PMI think a better idea would be to have Nick donate his money to our state school system instead of pushing to get us to pay more for it.
BTW, I send my kids to private schools, shelling out $6,000 per kid per year-- and they have ended up with an excellent eduction-- daughter scored 1350 on her SATs....
Posted by: John on February 5, 2005 09:32 PM