business backgrounder | education & workforce
local levies, state funding
Local voter-approved Maintenance and Operations (M&O) levies are
required to be used solely for educational enhancements within the
K-12 public school system. Those enhancements can be extracurricular
activities like after-school programs, sports, music or, in the case of
Bellevue School District, to fund an added seventh period class for
students.
Local levies are an option afforded to school districts to encourage
community ownership of educational programs, said Dammeier. He
added that the last thing education leaders want is a monolithic school
system driven by Olympia.
However, over the past 30 years, school districts throughout the
state have increasingly relied on locally-passed M&O levies to fill the
state’s basic education spending gap.
According to 2014 data from the Office of the Superintendent of
Public Instruction, local M&O levy collections along with Levy
Equalization Assistance and other funds total nearly $2.9 billion every
year. Of that, slightly more than half is spent on the program of basic
education each year.
Portions of classified staff and teacher salaries and half of school
principals’ salaries are now paid for with local levy dollars, according
to former state Rep. Skip Priest, R-Federal Way, the co-author of the
basic education reform laws, House bills 2261 and 2776. The two bills
make up the foundation of the McCleary ruling.
This practice “is a clear constitutional no-no,” Priest said.
Which explains the urgent push for levy reform, but it won’t be easy.
“We can’t be perfect, but we can balance
out a statewide solution with a thoughtful
approach.”
— Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, chair of the House
Appropriations Committee and chief House budget architect
manner that does not involve some sort of tax shift from property-rich,
high tax base regions, generally located in the central Puget Sound, to
property-poor, low tax base regions of the state.
It gets back to the constitutional mandate for a “general and
uniform” statewide school system, he said.
Dammeier’s plan would increase the state portion of the property
tax levy in such a way that low-property value areas would see a drop
in property taxes and high-value home areas would see an increase.
Doing rough math on Dammeier’s plan, a Seattle school district
homeowner with a house valued at $500,000 would see a property tax
increase of $345 per year.
In lower-value property tax regions, the effect of Dammeier’s plan
would be just the opposite. Franklin Pierce School District would see
the local levy rate drop from $5.10 to $1.50, a savings of $3.60. So, as
the state schools levy goes up by $1, property owners in this district
would still see a net savings of $2.60 per $1,000 of assessed value.
Hunter’s 2010 proposal would put in place the statutory $3.60 per
$1,000 assessed value for the statewide property tax, an increase of
roughly $1.60 per $1,000 of assessed value for every homeowner.
proposals needed by january 2016
Under Dammeier’s bill, the money generated by the state property
There is a growing consensus among lawmakers, education advocacy
tax
increase would be used, dollar for dollar, to replace local levy
groups, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction and the state
money
that is now going toward paying basic education expenditures.
Supreme