Westneat: Take the money from King County millionaires and run

So the district last month floated a construction bond proposal to taxpayers. But in what’s becoming a yearly futility-fest for many schools around the state, it won 59.65 percent of the vote.

That margin — more than any governor candidate here has won by in nearly 40 years — was actually a loss, due to state rules that say bonds require 60 percent approval to pass. The district fell 34 votes short, out of nearly 8,000 cast.

A similar fate befell 11 out of the 14 school districts statewide that saw their school reconstruction plans go down in flames. They got more than a majority of the taxpayers’ votes, but less than a supermajority.

On this, the right-leaning, anti-tax think tank the Washington Policy Center pounced. It called the votes “the latest sign of declining public confidence in the education system.”

See how that works? In no way does a 59 percent vote, or 57 percent or 55 percent as some other districts earned, suggest voters no longer believe in public schools. These are landslide numbers in any other election. What they indicate is that our state has an anti-democratic rule on the books — one that is then perversely employed to argue that the schools themselves are broken.

Setting aside this contrived demonization, the reality is that school districts in more rural parts of the state are struggling to advance. They have smaller tax bases than the urban areas, and also more tax-averse voters. Combined with the 60 percent rule, it’s a triple whammy that can leave kids in 30-year-old portables or classrooms with collapsing ceilings.

But there’s an answer for all this, at least a partial one. You out there in the hinterlands? You can just take the money from King County and run.

This past year, the state’s new capital gains tax on windfall profits from stocks and other assets poured $396 million into school construction projects, the state Department of Revenue reported in January. The state also reported the following astonishing figure: 84 percent of all the capital gains tax money was raised from a single county: King. The 20 counties east of the mountains contributed 3 percent, combined.

It suggests the capital gains tax is a huge money transfer from blue Seattle and King County out to red Eastern Washington, and other mostly rural areas. It’s possibly the most tilted blue-to-red program ever enacted in the state.

Schools everywhere can benefit from this — for now. A Republican-backed initiative to repeal the capital gains tax has qualified for the fall ballot. If the tax goes down, the Legislature noted, the school-construction plan would lose a major source of revenue.

Why would voters do this to themselves? Why not hit King County’s millionaires to help defray the costs of buildings? The money to replace those portables has to come from somewhere.

Don’t be surprised, though, if the red counties vote to repeal this tax on King County’s millionaires. Because we are just that polarized. I also bet it’ll be the bad-faith actors, the same ones using all this to deride the public schools, who will be leading the charge.