How Seattle schools are planning for a $74 million funding fall

It is nearly one week into the 2017 legislative session and state lawmakers remain divided on how to meet a state Supreme Court mandate to fully fund K-12 education. Seattle schools are among many closely watching, and waiting for lawmakers to come through.

Seattle Public Schools, the state’s largest school district, started work this week on a worst-case scenario budget. It aims to deal with a $74 million shortfall it blames on calls inaction by the state officials.

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Assistant Superintendent Stephen Nielsen said that it’s not just Seattle schools suffering from budget anxiety. On top of not getting enough funding from the state to cover basic education, there’s a clock ticking on every school district that relies on local levies to pay for education.

“Every school district in the state that has a local levy will have to make some kind of cuts if their levy is at the rate allowed by the legislature today,” Nielsen said. “Because next year, levy amounts that have already been approved by voters will be decreased — because of a law the legislature enacted several years ago.

That law has a deadline, known as the “levy cliff.” State lawmakers created it for themselves in order to shift school funding from local money to more state dollars.

Nielsen said the levy cliff and the overall lack of state funding makes up the majority of the district’s $74 million shortfall.

“(A total of) $30 million is a levy loss,” Neilsen said. “And $41 million is related to increased costs primarily driven by state law and state requirements and lack of state funding for those same things.”

“And there’s about $4 million that we have decided on our own to do things,” he said. “For example, we are opening new schools because of enrollment increases and it always costs money to open a new school.”

From Olympia to Seattle schools

There are bills in the house and the senate that would extend the levy cliff by a year. Governor Jay Inslee’s current budget proposal includes tax increases and state budget modifications to cover the cost of education. Nielsen sees that budget as a positive sign.

“The governor’s budget is the strongest indicator of recognition of state underfunding of K-12 in a very long time,” Nielsen said. “We are very excited about that being a strong and positive first step toward addressing the state’s obligations.”

“Most especially, the governor’s budget recognizes that the state is underfunding compensation at a substantial amount,” he said. “And it has a plan to pay teachers attractive wages that will retain those teachers in the education industry, rather than leaving and going somewhere else.”

Nielsen said that if the governor’s proposal is passed as is, it would help cover about 2/3 of Seattle schools’ shortfall. But, it still has to get through state lawmakers who have their own ideas. Many Republicans are opposed to Inslee’s tax increases.

For now, Nielsen notes that his Seattle schools are planning for the worst.

“It will mean fewer teachers in schools, it will mean fewer teachers in special program supports, and we are anticipating we will have to go to our minimum contractual obligations and state requirements around staffing in schools,” Nielsen said. “Those are dramatic. They are bad for students, they are bad for families. We do not want to do those. Nevertheless, we are going to have to take cuts district-wide.”

The first thing Seattle Public Schools will do is not fill vacant positions. After that there’s layoffs, larger class sizes and additional cuts.

The “worst case scenario” budget will be out in March. The hope is the legislature acts by April, but the school board won’t vote on final budget until August. Nielsen says if the legislature doesn’t act quickly, it leaves a lot of people hanging.

“This is going to be a long, hard summer for our families, our students, our staff because we won’t know anything other than our worse-case planning until we see final action on the budget from the legislature,” Nielsen said.

“So we are hoping that they act quickly on school funding and they do not wait until late spring,” he said. “It will be very disruptive for a lot of people across the state.”

Nielsen said education is essential for the future of all, and not funding it will be to our own detriment.