Finally there appears to be some clarity when it comes to school funding in the future.
And the Medical Lake School District seems to have enough of an understanding of things to announce they will float a pair of levies in early 2018.
“I think we’ve gotten a good handle on it,” Superintendent Tim Ames said. Enough so that they will test the waters with voters on Feb. 13 with both a replacement educational programs and operations levy, plus a capital levy designed to improve safety and infrastructure.
The new levy will take the place of one that passed by a 65–35 percent margin in Feb. 2015. Levy dollars are used to fund about 6 percent of Medical Lake’s $22.85 million budget, but the new one will be closer to 4.2 percent.
Six months ago, the Washington State Legislature finally approved an injection of an additional $7.3 billion in spending for K-12 education in the waning moments of the fiscal year, late in the day June 30.
On the surface much of what was done was simple.
Among other things, the bill included ways to better pay teachers, reduce class size and provide more money for high poverty schools.
It also totally restructured school levies with a new across-the-board rate in the state of $1.50 per $1,000 in the valuation of a taxpayers’ home. It also mandated that school districts be held more accountable, and as it turns out much more creative in how levy dollars are used.
Before the change, school districts floated levies in all shapes and sizes. Medical Lake’s rate was $2.21 per thousand, low compared to the $4.40 Spokane’s West Valley receives from its patrons.
But the devil is always in the details, hidden away in complex language and unintended consequences.
“In 2018 all levies will need to have their language approved by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI),” Chad Moss, district director of finance, said.
“This is what we’re going to spend it on, this is how we’re going to track it,” he added.
For Medical Lake, levy dollars over the next three years will provide approximately $3.1 million to cover a significant list of items that have been deemed outside the realm of basic education.
Commonly identified items on the list at Medical Lake include a broad array of extracurricular activities such as athletics, band, choir, ROTC and STEM programs.
Perhaps surprising might be how the state views services such as school nurses and psychologists.
“Funding is based on what is referred to as “the prototypical model,” Moss explained how the state pushes money through the system.
The state has a complex formula on how they come up with the funding numbers for staffing, Moss explained. “So we get .285 of a nurse, and that’s for all of our buildings, the whole district.”
Medical Lake employs two fulltime nurses and psychologists to service the entire district. “What does .285 of a nurse mean?” Ames wondered.
The state has determined nurses and psychologists — funded at .49 in ML — are outside of basic education, thus they operate out of the pool of levy dollars.
That model, which Moss said is very hard to define, also suggests that Medical Lake is overstaffed by 10 teachers according to Ames.
“Anything that you staff above the prototypical school model is an allowable expense to your levy,” Moss explained. “That would be considered enrichment if it’s above what they fund.”
But because of the eleventh-hour work by legislators, and an inability to make sure all the details had their T’s crossed and I’s dotted, the entire taxation mechanism is still being studied — and is likely to be tweaked in the upcoming legislative session which starts Jan. 8.
Recently, administrators from across the region met at Educational Services District 101 with 49 districts involved met with what Ames called a “Board of Legislators.”
The second request of voters, Proposition 2, looks for approval of a six-year capital levy at 40 cents per $1,000 that will, among other things, improve safety measures across the district. “This is really a home improvement type of deal, “Ames said, raising about $1.75 million.
“Our buildings are in good shape but our roofs are getting old,” Ames said.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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