|
The Legislature adjourned its 2025 Session on April 27. Since then, the governor signed over 400 bills, including new two-year Operating, Capital, and Transportation Budgets, and we have been busy analyzing the potential impacts on schools.
To fund the Operating Budget, the governor also signed multiple bills to increase revenue.
Tax legislation is expected to raise over $9 Billion in the next four years—and this does not include the many bills that provided authority for local option taxes, which will likely make it that much more difficult for school districts to pass levies.
On the spending side, legislators again chose to focus on multiple issues other than K–12 education. The investment in Special Education was over $300 million—a significant and appreciated appropriation; however, this is less than a quarter of the biennial need.
A modest $80 million investment was provided for Materials, Supplies, and Operating Costs (MSOC). This will help school districts, but similar to Special Education, this comes nowhere near school districts’ need. And, of course, Pupil Transportation received little attention and ultimately no new policy or new appropriations were adopted.
Those issues above, of course, comprise the “Big Three” which was the major focus for WASA and education association partners in our coalition: Association of Educational Service Districts (AESD), Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA), Washington Association of School Business Officials (WASBO), Association of Washington School Principals (AWSP), Washington School Personnel Association (WSPA), Alliance of Educational Associations (AEA)—which represents two associations: Washington Association of Maintenance and Operations Administrators (WAMOA) and Washington School Nutrition Association (WSNA)—Rural Education Center (REC), Washington Association of Career and Technical Administrators (WACTA), and Washington State Parent Teacher Association (WSPTA). WASA, in conjunction with AESD, took the lead last session by adopting our basic education focused 2025 Legislative Platform in April, just a few short weeks after the 2024 Session adjourned.
Given the failure of the Legislature to adequately address their constitutional obligation to amply fund basic education, WASA’s Legislation & Finance Committee and Board of Directors quickly turned the page from 2025 and have already adopted a new 2026 Legislative Platform, reaffirming our support for the Big Three: MSOC, Special Education, and Pupil Transportation.
The rationale for continuing forward with the focus on the Big Three is simple: success with these issues will support ALL 295 districts; each issue is a basic education program constitutionally required to be amply funded—and they are woefully underfunded; the Legislature clearly failed to fulfill our requests—which are really school districts’ NEEDS—and reiterating the same focus maintains important consistency; and aligning school administrators and other education stakeholders to focus on a limited set of issues sent a powerful message to legislators and continuing the same focus will help us to maintain our coalition.
Additionally, we are in this for the “long haul” and continuing to focus on the Big Three will allow us to build on the momentum we gained last year.
Looking toward long-term financial stability for K–12 education, a fourth priority is also elevated by the 2026 Platform. The new plank urges the Legislature to establish a formal K–12 Ample and Equitable Finance System Workgroup to examine structural flaws and inequities in how education is funded.
Discussion about overhauling K–12 funding continues to grow and school administrators need to be at the table—if not leading the conversation.
We, again, included in our Platform document a set of Legislative Priorities
(page two of the document). While we will focus on the Big Three, these are issues that remain of major concern and they need to remain on legislators’ radar. In addition to the priority issues from 2025 (Updating Staff Allocations, Modifying Regionalization/Experience Factor, Reforming Levies and Local Effort Assistance, and Supporting Capital Facilities), we have added Full Funding of Substitute Costs—a growing financial concern for most districts.
Given the results of the Legislature’s severe lack of action and support for school district needs, educators are disappointed and frustrated.
Many of you question why we should continue to fight a losing battle; however, giving up would be the greatest gift legislators could receive.
They would love nothing more than have you fade away—so they can focus on issues THEY believe are important and not be bothered with you pestering them about a constitutional requirement.
If you quit—by default, they win.
Be assured, your advocacy—contact with legislators, public testimony, signing in on priority legislation—DID have an impact. Legislators provided modest investments (clearly not enough) to support K–12; however, without the consistent and insistent engagement by school administrators and other educators, we likely would not have even seen what little legislators did provide.
We strongly encourage you to stay engaged and continue to build relationships with legislators. WASA will continue to provide you tools and resources to help your advocacy efforts, such as the school funding website (www.waschoolfunding.org) to assist you in communicating our message with the public and our Tool Kit, complete with key messages, talking points, issue briefings, fiscal data, and other resources to help us speak with one voice.
We are already in-process of updating and overhauling those two resources to assist in your advocacy efforts.
Be on the lookout for new and updated resources later this summer.
Finally, there are simply too many issues—budget and policy—addressed by this Legislature to discuss here.
For comprehensive details of the 2025–27 Operating and Capital Budgets, as well as a full examination of the many education-related bills that were acted upon this past session, we encourage you to review WASA’s forthcoming End of Session Report.
|
.png?cb=949755)
