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An income tax for education?

Last week state Superintendent Randy Dorn released a $2.2 billion education spending proposal. Today state Treasurer Jim McIntire proposed a way to pay for that new spending. His proposal would: Eliminate the state property tax, lower regular property tax limits, and limit excess local school levies; Set the B&O rate at 1.0 percent for business […]

New policy brief: Levy Swap: Tax Increases, Tax Reductions, Unanswered Questions

We have posted a new policy brief titled: Levy Swap: Tax Increases, Tax Reductions, Unanswered Questions Briefly Levy swap: court-required state funding to replace local dollars to finance basic k-12 education. A state property tax increase to fund a levy swap is proposed by Sen. Dammeier, Rep. Hunter. A uniform statewide property tax hike to […]

“Levy swap” proposals surface

The Seattle Times has a story about three legislative proposals to reduce reliance on local school property tax levies that emerged on Wednesday: State lawmakers Wednesday put forth three competing proposals to address part of a court mandate for K-12 education that would reduce schools’ reliance on local tax levies. … The three tax-levy proposals […]

How to get around the unfunded mandate of I-1351?

Budget writers agree that Initiative 1351 should not be funded. This is easier said than done. (Like true love, the course of budget writing never did run smooth.) I-1351 requires class size reductions for grades K-12, while the McCleary decision requires class size reductions only for grades K-3. The Legislature is already working on that […]

Education roundup

The AP reports that some are now estimating that the cost of complying with the McCleary decision on education funding could be in the ballpark of $6 billion. That number includes not only K-3 class size reduction, full day kindergarten, and materials, supplies and operating costs, but also takes into account that . . . […]

Latest In Focus episode

President drops 529 tax proposal; GET program dodges a bullet

This week President Obama decided to drop his State of the Union proposal to tax earnings from 529 plans. These plans are a tax advantaged way to save for college — distributions from the accounts are not taxed when used for educational purposes. (Washington’s GET program is one of them; we wrote about the program […]

New brief: Higher Education Policy and the State Budget

We have a new policy brief today on Washington’s higher education system.

Reframing the education funding debate: Time to move the goalposts?

Give former state Sen. Jim Kastama credit for his op-ed in today’s Seattle Times. Kastama says what few others have said publicly. He takes a look at the legislative history of ESHB 2261, the legislation setting school funding goals that have become the state Supreme Court’s standard for full funding of basic education in the […]

Seattle Times on education, transportation, and Inslee's budget proposal

Education and transportation look to be main areas of work for the Legislature in the upcoming session. Over the weekend, the Seattle Times had a few interesting items on these topics, in light of Gov. Inslee’s 2015-17 budget proposal. First, regarding the governor’s transportation plan, the paper points to a letter from state Treasurer Jim […]