A News Tribune article (9-14) recently explored the role of legislators in the teachers’ strike in Tacoma School District. State Sen. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, was quoted as saying, “You can’t blame the Legisla-ture.”
With all due respect, I couldn’t disagree more.
While we all understand the depth of the state’s fiscal crisis, school superintendents across the state tried to impress upon state lawmakers that their action to cut state funding for teacher salaries by 1.9 percent and to require that these cuts be negotiated separately in 295 school districts would be inequitable and divisive, adding fuel to budget-reduction tensions in each district and community.
In fact, the entire shaky funding structure for public schools in our state is an outcome of a series of legislative decisions or nondecisions. The Legislature bears responsibility for systematically shifting the burden of funding schools to local taxpayers by combining ever-increasing levy lids with reductions in state support.
In the 2007-2008 school year, state funding accounted for 72 percent of school district revenues while local taxes provided 16 percent. In our district, state funding this year provides only 62 percent of our budget; local taxes account for 22 percent.
It is politically expedient for legislators to consistently oppose additional tax revenue at the state level – while foisting onto school districts the burden of filling the gap locally via property taxes. This structure creates unconscionable funding inequities across the state, enabling property-rich, affluent school districts to raise millions more than poorer districts.
Districts – like ours – that have worked very hard to build their reserves in order to buffer students and staff from the impact of ongoing state budget reductions hear legislators talk about these reserves as if the district were somehow trying to hoard its resources. As Conway said, “this school district (Tacoma) has the largest fund balance in the state.” A district’s fund balance, if it has one, is local money conserved at significant effort despite, not because of, legislative action.
It was the Legislature that subsidized its general operations fund with “savings” by reducing pension contributions for years, creating the increasingly problematic underfunding of the teacher retirement system that will require exponential employer contribution increases over the next decade – a significant cost increase borne at the local district level.
As to teacher strikes, it’s the Legislature that can’t make the call, one way or the other, as to their legality, thereby forcing individual school districts to undergo the painful process of deciding to take their own teachers to court — a sure recipe for increasing acrimony and disruption.
In the same news article, Rep. Bruce Dammeier, R-Puyallup, was more clear-sighted about lawmakers’ role: “I think the Legislature kind of teed up this problem.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Patti Banks is the superintendent of the University Place School District.
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