Yesterday the Legislature filed its report to the state Supreme Court on its progress toward complying with the McCleary decision on education funding. (The report was approved last week.)

Also yesterday, the attorney general filed a memo with the Court asking it to lift its contempt order and end sanctions. The AG's memo argues that E2SSB 6195 (enacted this session) meets the Court's requirements for a plan (the lack of which prompted the Court to impose sanctions).

The memo mentions the Legislature's commitment in E2SSB 6195 to fund basic education and end school district dependency on local levies. The memo argues, "That statement of commitment by a coordinate branch of government is entitled to respect."

Indeed, the AG's memo argues that 

The Legislature has demonstrated over the last four years that it will meet the deadlines it sets for itself. It has met or is on schedule to meet every deadline established in ESHB 2261 and SHB 2776. There is no basis for the Court to assume that the Legislature will not also meet the deadlines it has set for itself in E2SSB 6195. The Legislature is committed to its constitutional duty, just as is the Court. It is entitled to a presumption of regularity and good faith—a presumption that it will do what it has committed to do.

(The memo anticipates that "Plaintiffs and others will disparage E2SSB 6195 as unworkable, too little too late, inconsequential, and worse. They will say it is not a plan and will exhort the Court to cast it aside and impose harsh sanctions on the State." On cue, as Melissa Santos of the News Tribune reports, Thomas Ahearne, McCleary plaintiffs' attorney, said, "It’s not a plan.")

In a few places, the AG's memo dovetails with the issues discussed at yesterday's budget outlook meeting. First, it notes that E2SSB 6195 doesn't

. . . include a budget for legislation to be enacted in 2017, because the information necessary to craft that legislation is not yet available. The costs of fully implementing the remaining elements of SHB 2776 can be estimated and are included in the current budget outlook documents. The bill includes provisions specifically designed to estimate the cost of fully funding the basic education portions of K-12 teacher and staff compensation. Once that information is available, the Legislature can craft a budget and determine appropriate funding sources.  

Also, the memo mentions that the Court, in a January 2014 order, 

compared the State's progress to the plan proposed by the Joint Task Force on Education Funding (JTFEF)—an aspirational recommendation that had not been enacted by the Legislature.

This is what Sen. Hill was getting at when he objected to the inclusion in the outlook of a range of estimates of what the remaining McCleary costs will be. As Joseph O'Sullivan reports in the Seattle Times, 

“I worry about putting any number in there,” said Hill. “Only because these numbers have been picked up, bandied about, and before you know it, they become a mandate.”

Speaking of that range of costs, as I noted yesterday, state Treasurer James McIntire requested an alternate outlook to include McCleary costs. The Economic and Revenue Forecast Council released that alternative this morning. It includes a policy level item for K-12 compensation in 2017-19 totaling $3.5 billion. The note describing this item states, "Based on prior legislative proposals from the 2015 session, at full biennial implementation, the costs could be $3.5 billion or more."