Education and Training

Washington Ledge

Dispatches from public radio's correspondent at the Washington Legislature. Austin Jenkins is the Olympia correspondent for the Northwest News Network. You can also see Austin on television as host of TVW's (the C–SPAN of Washington State) weekly public affairs program "Inside Olympia."

School Levy Reform Becomes A Late Topic Of Talk In Olympia

NWNews | By Austin Jenkins

Published April 20, 2015 at 2:55 PM PDT

File photo of Seattle's Roosevelt High School. Washington lawmakers are poised to put more than $1 billion more into public schools over the next two years.

Washington lawmakers are poised to put an additional $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion into public schools over the next two years.

But will that be enough to satisfy the Washington Supreme Court in the McCleary case?

In recent days several levy reform proposals have been floated in Olympia. But so far Governor Jay Inslee isn’t embracing any of them.

“It’s kind of a second step,” Inslee said. “We are focusing on the budget right now to take the first step which is actually to have financing for the McCleary decision, that second step I don’t think is necessary to accomplishing the first step. I’m focused on that first step.”

Washington lawmakers are in contempt of court and face sanctions this year if they don’t produce a plan to fully fund K-12 by 2018. The state Supreme Court has said Washington’s over-reliance on local levies to fund schools is unconstitutional.