State Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn sued Evergreen Public Schools and six other school districts Tuesday as he seeks to ramp up the pressure on the Legislature to fully fund public schools.
A state Supreme Court order known as the McCleary decision compels the Legislature to fully fund basic education by 2018, but four years after it was issued, the court’s order has yet to be implemented.
In the interim, Evergreen and many other school districts have spent local school levy money to augment salaries for teachers, administrators and classified staff.
Dorn’s suit contends that the practice is unconstitutional, and points to the economic disparity between districts that have levy funds to pay more money to teachers and other staff, and districts that do not.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in King County and names as defendants Evergreen and six other large school districts: Seattle, Everett, Bellevue, Spokane, Tacoma and Puyallup.
John Deeder, superintendent of Evergreen Public Schools, said he had “had a heads-up” that Dorn planned to file the lawsuit, and had talked to people in Dorn’s office in Olympia occasionally over the last couple of months.
Deeder described the lawsuit as “a tactic to get the Legislature in a box to either do what the Supreme Court told them to do (comply with McCleary and fully fund education) or to deal with this (new lawsuit).”
He will participate in a Wednesday afternoon conference call with the superintendents of the other districts named in the suit. He does not yet know whether Evergreen or the other districts will take any action.
“I don’t know what action we can take,” Deeder said. “The bottom line is, what’s stated in the suit is pretty accurate. It’s just that the Legislature hasn’t given us any choice.”
Deeder said he doesn’t believe the lawsuit will have any negative repercussions for his district or that it will affect teacher pay in the coming school year.
“We’re also using a significant amount of our levy money to pay classified and administrative positions,” Deeder said. “You’re not just talking about teachers here. You’re talking about every employee in the school district.”
Evergreen’s school board will discuss the lawsuit when it meets next. Deeder was unsure whether the board would call a special meeting or wait until its regular meeting Aug. 9.
How it works
In Washington, property owners pay a state property tax for schools, and also a local school levy in an amount approved by district voters. The amount of the money collected by local levies varies widely among districts and depends on several factors, including the value of the taxable property base in the school district and the amount local voters are willing to pay to support schools.
School districts that pass these maintenance and operations levies often use the money to supplement employee pay and hire extra staff.
Teacher pay varies from district to district. Wealthier school districts can offer higher pay, thus attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers. That affects the quality of education students receive.
According to the lawsuit, the statewide average state-funded teacher salary in 2014-15 was $52,944, but the average actual salary was $66,605, with local levies adding $13,661 or 26 percent. The statewide average state-funded salary for school administrators in 2014-15 was $59,954, but the average actual salary was $115,090, with local levies adding $55,136 or 92 percent. And the statewide average state-funded salary for classified staff in 2014-15 was $32,334, but the average actual salary was $46,425, with local levies adding $14,091 or 44 percent.
Inequitable teacher pay between school districts played out in the recent contract negotiations between Battle Ground Public Schools and its teachers union. Battle Ground teachers referred to the higher pay offered by the neighboring Evergreen and Vancouver districts.
Dorn’s press release quoted Sen. Andy Hill, R-Redmond, chairman of the Ways & Means Committee, who wrote that “the obligation of financing and providing revenues for our children’s education needs to be equitably borne across the state, not subject to the whims of one’s ZIP code.”
“Instead of blaming the messenger, critics should demand legislators and the governor fulfill the constitutional obligations they have shirked for too many years,” Dorn wrote.
