In response to continued concerns about last year’s school funding model fix, the state education department has offered a plan it expects would inject an additional $2.75 billion into state schools in 2019.
In legislation proposed by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, school districts could next year opt between collecting $2,500 per student or its 2018 local levy rate to fund education (with exceptions for districts collecting more than the state average levy rate).
That’s on top of the increased $2.89 state levy rate approved by the Legislature in a last-minute effort to fully fund public education, as required by the state Supreme Court’s 2012 McCleary decision.
Under the state’s currently adopted plan, districts beginning in 2019 can only collect $1.50 per $1,000 in assessed value from property owners or $2,500 per student — whichever is lower.
“The idea here is that there could be some districts that are going to struggle with this because their state money is increasing but their local money is decreasing,” OSPI spokesman Nathan Olson said.
It’s a complicated formula that OSPI projects, while costing taxpayers more, it would raise tens of millions of dollars more for Clark County’s largest districts than the state’s plan currently allows.
“Districts should have the flexibility to do as much as they can with their local levies,” Olson said.
But Evergreen Public Schools Superintendent John Steach is wary of the proposal. He worries, for example, how tax changes could affect support for the district’s Feb. 13 bond measure and future levy requests. According to district calculations, Evergreen taxpayers are slated to pay more for school bonds in 2019 if the $695 million bond is approved, but less for schools overall when local levy rates drop.
“Our goal is to keep our rates down,” Steach said.
Evergreen Public Schools is slated to collect $69,689,642 in local levy dollars this year. Under the state’s current model, that will drop to $40,195,741 next year. But with OSPI’s proposal, the drop will be much slighter — to $62,394,960.
“We’re in the middle of this bond campaign and we still would have a drop but it wouldn’t be as significant as a drop,” Steach said.
The state Supreme Court ruled in November that the state’s plan would fully fund education once fully implemented in 2019. But school districts, including Vancouver Public Schools, worry the new funding model won’t fully cover teacher pay, especially at districts where many teachers have advanced degrees, or special education expenses.
Under the Legislature’s plan, Vancouver Public Schools is slated to collect $35,264,824 in local dollars. If OSPI’s plan is approved, that would go up to $55,940,303.
VPS Superintendent Steve Webb said the proposal “addresses concerns about the inadequacy of funding for many districts.”
“It also makes funding more equitable between property-rich and property-poor districts with new levy rate and local effort assistance calculations,” Webb said. “Other aspects of the proposal, including the relative impact on Vancouver taxpayers, warrant more careful review.”
