Superintendent: Legislature still in contempt of court

Many are sighing in relief after Washington’s lawmakers finished a budget preventing a shutdown of state services this month, but State Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn is not one of them.

While Republicans and Democrats took two special sessions to compromise on gas taxes and tax loopholes, Dorn told KIRO Radio’s Seattle’s Morning News that the education portion still falls short of what the state’s Supreme Court has ordered legislators to accomplish.

Related: Gov. Inslee to sign two-year state budget

“I think the court is going to be in a really tough spot to say ‘yeah, you did your job,'” Dorn said Tuesday morning.

The education portion of the budget was perhaps the largest consideration this time around as the state’s Supreme Court has been leaning on the Legislature to adequately fund basic education. It is the result of what has become known as the McCleary Decision; a 2012 decision that says the state failed to fulfill its paramount duty under the constitution to “make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders…”

The task involves finding at least $3.5 billion to fully fund education and provide a plan to continue doing so, by 2018. Lawmakers had to show progress toward that 2018 goal each year. But last year, the Supreme Court checked in on the state’s progress and found it lacking. It placed the state in contempt of court. Justices said the state had to have better funding by April 2014; it failed to meet that deadline as well. Justices then said legislators had to find the money in the 2015 budget.

Dorn said that while a budget was passed, education was shortchanged. He said that the court asked for two things: full funding and a plan that is equitable and ample.

“They didn’t produce a plan,” Dorn said. “What they did is make local districts more dependent on local levies. You are going to have to use more of your local levies to pay for state basic [education] responsibilities because they only paid for state-funded positions and didn’t pay for the money they are shorting them for administration.”

Dorn said that if it were up to him, he would hold state legislators in contempt again.

“It’s about an equitable system and funding what is basic in an equal manner,” he said. “And local levies are set aside for extra things &#8212 not basic education things &#8212 like an extra hour, a jazz band, field trips.”

Dorn said that he estimates only 12 state legislators actually understand the McCleary Decision and therefore what they are required to do. He thinks lawmakers are due for yet another special session.

“Call them back for a special session, so all 147 legislators actually understand the issue of what McCleary is, what the court said you had to do, and what’s in the statute that the Legislature said you had to pay for,” Dorn said.

For Dorn, the issue has moved beyond education funding and is now a civil rights issue that the state is slow to resolve.

“Wealthy neighborhoods are able to fund more dollars per pupil than poor neighborhoods because they can raise more money with local levies,” he said.

“Guess who’s in the wealthy neighborhoods? White kids and Asian kids. Guess who’s in the poor neighborhoods? Poor kids and minority students,” Dorn said. “That’s an inequitable system and that’s what the court said you had to do a better job of, and we haven’t made any effort to change that.”