State Funding for Public Education Should Be Clear By End of Day

Sadly, what is clear is that, at least in the Senate, it appears that there are senators who want to drive more money to charter schools but then, don't really want to allow more money to go to traditional schools.

So there's good news and there's bad news from the State Senate tonight.


Good news: They just passed ESSB 5313, the levy flexibility bill. It was a strangely close vote, 25-23 with 1 excused.

Bad news: They also adopted Palumbo's amendment that would give charter schools the same amount of money as public schools in a given district. Interestingly, that amendment passed with 31 votes, so 7 Senators - *including Palumbo himself* - voted for an amendment for charter schools and then voted against the bill itself, with that amendment, to help public schools.

Then there's the news that will take some time to figure out: What the bill actually does. Here's how the final numbers shaped up - allowable levy collection rates were raised to:

• The lesser of $2.50 per $1,000 of assessed value or $2,500 per pupil for school districts with fewer than 40,000 FTE students;

• or The lesser of $2.50 per $1,000 of assessed value or $3,000 per pupil for school districts with 40,000 FTE students or more.

That last provision appears to apply only to Seattle.

Mullet's amendment limiting collective bargaining rights is gone. But instead there's language asking the State Auditor to review levy expenditures and penalizing districts.

Here's the language:

"Requires that the State Auditor review of local revenue expenditures include a review of the expenditure schedule for certain supplementary enrichment activities.

Requires that, should the State Auditor find a school district has used local revenues for non-enrichment activities, the school district's maximum enrichment levy collection authorized under law must be reduced by the unauthorized expenditure amount in the following calendar year."

So, more stuff to figure out. And this bill still has to pass the House. It's a mixed bag, definitely good news for public schools, but really troubling that charter schools got to get a huge amount of new money by leveraging the threat of cuts to classrooms.

Charter School Amendment roll call:

Yeas: 31 Nays: 16 Absent: 0 Excused: 2

Voting yea: Senators Bailey, Becker, Billig, Braun, Brown, Carlyle, Cleveland, Fortunato, Hawkins, Holy, Honeyford, Hunt, King, Kuderer, McCoy, O'Ban, Padden, Palumbo, Pedersen, Rivers, Rolfes, Salomon, Schoesler, Short, Takko, Wagoner, Walsh, Warnick, Wellman, Wilson, L., and Zeiger

Voting nay: Senators Conway, Darneille, Das, Dhingra, Ericksen, Frockt, Hasegawa, Hobbs, Keiser, Liias, Lovelett, Nguyen, Randall, Saldaña, Van De Wege, and Wilson, C.

Excused: Senators Mullet, and Sheldon