Emily Makings

Public libraries caught up in education funding lawsuit in West Virginia

As I wrote here, several states are facing education funding lawsuits. Apparently West Virginia is too, with a bit of a twist: In a special act, the legislature required nine counties in the state, including Kanawha, to use a potion of their state education funding to provide for public libraries. Public libraries in the 46 […]

WA union membership, 2012

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released 2012 data on unionization in the U.S. (Dick wrote about it here.) In 2012, the total union membership rate in the U.S. was 11.3 percent, the public-sector union membership rate was 35.9 percent, and the private-sector union membership rate was 6.6 percent. Washington’s total union membership rate […]

Lawsuits and education finance policy

An article in Education Week calls attention to education funding lawsuits that are pending in several states, complicating policymaking: As state budgets slowly recover from several years of economic contraction and stagnation, significant court battles continue to play a related yet distinct role in K-12 policy, even in states where the highest courts have already […]

New Brief: Comparative Analysis of School Funding

In a new special report, we look at school funding in Washington — level of funding, sources of funding, and how that funding compares to other states. As it turns out, Washington’s schools are funded heavily from state sources: Washington ranks 11th nationally in state revenues per student, but it ranks 40th in revenues from […]

Potential changes for workers' comp voluntary settlements

In a Seattle Times op-ed over the weekend, two state representatives, Christopher Hurst and Cathy Dahlquist, call for more changes to workers’ compensation. Some reforms to the system were enacted in 2011 (we wrote about them here), and some savings have been realized. As Reps. Hurst and Dahlquist note, The single largest projected saving from […]

Medicaid: "not a bottomless bucket of money"

The Washington Post’s Wonkblog today highlights Oregon’s Medicaid demonstration project, which uses a “global budget” in an attempt to control health care costs. In exchange for $1.9 billion over five years from the federal government, “Oregon’s Medicaid program must grow at a rate that is 2 percent slower than the rest of the country, ultimately […]

Local government pension and retiree health care funding shortfalls

According to the Pew Center on the States this week, in 2009, pension liabilities of 61 major cities in the U.S. were $385 billion, of which $286 billion was funded. Additionally, these cities had retiree health care liabilities of $126 billion, of which only $8 billion was funded. In total dollars, the 61 cities had […]

Options for basic education spending

In a blog post yesterday, state Rep. Ross Hunter provides a good overview of the education funding problem in Washington. He notes the report of the Joint Task Force on Education Funding (JTFEF), which was released December 31, 2012. Created by House Bill 2824 last year, the task force was charged with “developing a proposal […]

The Effectiveness of Higher School Spending and Class Size Reductions

One of the main issues to be tackled this legislative session is education funding. Gov. Gregoire’s 2013-15 budget proposal calls for a “$1 billion down payment on the $3.4 billion in new K-12 spending the state has committed to over the next six years.” Additionally, the budget proposal would reduce K-2 class sizes in high […]

New Brief: Governor Gregoire's 2013-15 Budget Proposal

In December, Gov. Gregoire released her budget proposal for the upcoming biennium. We detail her proposed spending and revenue changes in a new policy brief. Overall, the proposal would increase spending by $2.8 billion over 2011-13. New and extended tax options in the plan total over $1 billion.