Spokane7
55°
January 28, 2012 in Opinion
Guest opinion: School levies deserve your support
Soon, most Eastern Washington school districts will ask voters to approve continuation of levies that help fund basic educational operations.
As business leaders and members of Greater Spokane Incorporated’s K-12 Roundtable, we urge you to vote yes.
When originally conceived, maintenance and operations (M&O) levies were intended to give school districts the opportunity to supplement state funding with local resources to enhance district programs and enrich the learning experience. Over time, with increasing state and federal mandates and reduced state funding per pupil, the dollars generated by local M&O levies have become essential to covering day-to-day operating expenses. In most of our districts in Eastern Washington, levies now represent approximately one-quarter of total district revenues.
These levies, if approved, will continue to support a wide variety of programs that provide K-12 students with broad educational opportunities, including art, drama, music and sports; Advanced Placement and other college-credit courses; all-day kindergarten; dropout prevention programs; counselors, nurses, librarians and maintenance staff; and essentials such as books, computers and transportation.
Consider this: Economists project that 40 percent of new jobs will require advanced training and education in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). That’s why businesses are increasing support of STEM initiatives in school districts. But it will take voter-approved levies to keep those programs going.
It’s easy to see the importance of the STEM initiative in Spokane, where we are investing capital resources today in the construction of a new medical school building on the Riverpoint campus. Tomorrow, we will need the properly trained workforce to staff and support this new enterprise and all the activities related to it – lab staff, technicians, support staff and more, in addition to medical professionals.
The pipeline for providing that highly skilled workforce starts with our K-12 districts.
As employers, we need a talented and educated workforce, properly equipped with skills to help local firms compete in an increasingly challenging economic climate. We want our local school systems to support, challenge and inspire our young people to pursue meaningful lives and work, giving them the foundation for success. We need strong K-12 systems in order to attract new businesses and their employees.
We are blessed in Eastern Washington to have strong, well-functioning districts with committed students, parents, teachers and administrators. They are producing results of which we should be proud, including graduation rates that exceed state and national benchmarks – significantly, in many cases.
Our districts are solvent and school boards and administrations have wisely balanced their educational programs with the pressures of leaner funding. Our professional teaching staffs have continued to do more with less to accommodate fiscal pressures. We have had no financial disasters, no strikes, and no protests from students or parents. Everyone is working together to do the best we can for our kids with the resources that are available.
Please join the board and member employers of Greater Spokane Incorporated in ensuring we continue to have strong schools, adequately funded to provide the basics. Support your district with your vote on the current M&O levy and an ongoing investment of your tax dollars. Become involved and contribute to the success of our educational programs. It is our privilege to do so; it is our opportunity to do so; and, it is our responsibility to do so.
Vote yes for schools! It is the right thing to do – good for kids, good for Spokane and good for our future together as an engaged, enlightened and progressive community.
Tom Johnson is president and CEO of Spokane Teachers Credit Union. He is a former vice president of Whitworth University and ischairman of Greater Spokane Incorporated’s K-12 Roundtable. Bruce Williams is an environmental scientist and principal business leader at GeoEngineers. Williams serves on the K-12 Roundtable, where he is the immediate past chairman.
MAC firing begs explanation 
Notapatriot on January 28 at 7:24 a.m.
I’ll vote for a levy the day I see the drop out rate drop from 35% to something south of 10, when admin salaries are cut in half, and they quit building high school resorts with my tax dollars. Just like the formerly bloated STA. They will only learn by being squeezed and forced to change. “It’s for the kids” …. Give me a break. With admin folks making $200K and parents being asked to provide essential classroom supplies - these people are so out of touch with reality it’s just pathetic.
Notapatriot on January 28 at 7:26 a.m.
What needs to happen is to bust their stinking’ union. Remember Reagan & PATCO strikers? The world will keep spinning around and be a much better place. Unions and entitlements will be the death knell of this once great country.
ChefGus/ John Olsen on January 29 at 7:33 a.m.
Hey.. notapatriot…. having trouble looking at your profile… it does not give us a real name and identity?? can ya help out here?
survivalguy on January 30 at 2:56 p.m.
“Please join the board and member employers of Greater Spokane Incorporated … Become involved and contribute to the success of our educational programs. It is our privilege to do so; it is our opportunity to do so; and, it is our responsibility to do so.”
Why, yes, let us join the bussinessmen and women of Spokane that make millions off the educrat establishment pushing contracts their way.
Or, we could all join together and drain the festering swamp that is Spokane Public Schools, drain it of exactly the amount of money required to keep overpaid, meddling, pedigogical high priests rolling in dough…
There is no requirement that classroom teachers lose their jobs, that sports or clubs or gifted education programs be eliminated if this levy fails. Only the requirement that 60-70 million be cut from the budget. All the “we’d be FORCED to cut programs, teachers, clubs” is a lie. It is also against state law for the District to make these kinds of threats to scare you into approving the levy - but they do it anyway… LIES - LIES - LIES!!!
What GSI is afraid of is losing money. What the board is afraid of is having to show their true colors - The board would cut classroom teachers instead of a bloated and innefficient administration.
THEN the people of Spokane, and perhaps GSI, would see where the real intent of this levy is…
flyerd1 on February 02 at 4:11 a.m.
1. Irt it not being a new tax:
Anything with an end date (like a “3yr” levy tax or a mortgage) has to have a “new” one started in order to “remain” in place so it’s perfectly accurate to say it’s a new tax. What if, after paying off your mortgage, the bank said “we don’t want you to pay a new mortgage, we’d just like you to pay on this replacement mortgage” for another mortgage term…? How would that go over?
2. Actual levy rates and Levy Equalization Funds (LEF):
The levy rate most often used by school districts is the smaller, LEF assisted one. However, with our current economy, this is a time when LEF funds could go away and people should plan accordingly (plan worst case scenario). That would cause the amount taken by this levy to be approximately 22% more than the school dist claims.
3. Irt A) It being 28% (mead) of their budget & B) What the levy $ is or is not used for:
A levy is meant to be a one time fill-gap revenue stream that may be necessary once every 10-20 yrs. It’s “NOT” meant to be a “constant” revenue stream… It shows incredibly bad district leadership when they’ve gotten to the point of expecting levies as a never ending part of their budget.
It’s extremely disingenuous to say the money “is not” used for new buildings, repairs, pensions, etc. That’s a simple “shell game”. It’s like having a monthly budget (including $100 each for phone, power, alcohol, and gas) and saying “gee mom, I don’t have enough money to cover all my monthly bills; If you give me $100 I can pay my pwr bill”. There’s no way to realistically seperate that $100 out and stipulate it’s actually being used to pay “the pwr bill” as opposed to the gas, phone, alcohol, etc. budget items. Similarly, there is “no way to realistically separate” levy money such that it can be considered a “completely separate” (from all other budget items) funding amount. The exact part of the budget that the school dist “chooses to say” the levy money pays for is simply a matter of which shell they choose to say it goes towards… Again, its a simple shell game of distortions to say “a specific revenue stream” of any budget is only going to used “for select items” of that overall budget.
4. Despite how this may sound, I’m completely for education funding via a fair and equitable method. A much more equitable method of requesting additional funding would be to request it via a sales tax increase (whatever fraction of a penny required). That way, “everyone” casting a vote would actually be voting to increase “their own taxes” as well as other people’s taxes. If it’s going to be a property tax then either A) only property owners should have the levy on their ballots or B) it should be a supermajority vote. Right now many people vote who don’t even pay property taxes… Otherwise this type of a levy tax should require a super majority in order to be considered more of a fair vote (#5 below).
A cost cutting, as opposed to revenue generating, method of addressing the education budgets would be to address the underfunded TERS1 pensions and work to modify those pensions via negotiations and constitutional changes. The state already acknowledged that TERS1 (stopped in 1977) was unsustainable and a responsible re-negotiation could be done without undue harm to current pension beneficiaries. All other post TERS1 plans should be transitioned to 401K plans. Additionally, cost structures should be reviewed and compared to the charter schools that currently operate for less money while achieving better scholastic success rates.
See 5. below…
flyerd1 on February 02 at 4:12 a.m.
5. If it was a super majority vote this would at least be a fair vote. A super majority vote is necessary anytime you allow a subset group of people to vote on a matter that could be beneficial to them and that they are “not” directly impacted by (in a financially impacting way, i.e. they pay for it). For example (using property ownership rates of 60%), if 65% of “non-property owners” vote “YES”, a levy like this could pass with only 40% of property owners voting for it (even though the property owners pay it).
If Washington was having a vote to increase the sales tax by 2% you wouldn’t want people from Idaho to be allowed to vote because, as stated above, they would be a subset of voters that don’t have to pay for the tax but could actually benefit as their sales went up due to people going into Idaho to avoid the 2% increase.
The counter point of “renters pay these fees via rent” is ridiculous because only in a perfect system would this be the case. In actuality, landlords can only charge what the market will bear. Meaning, if a landlord can’t get a renter at a price that covers the levy costs he/she has to lower the rent in order to simply rent the unit out…
flyerd1 on February 13 at 1:44 a.m.
Contrary to the apparent beliefs of most levy supporters that people in opposition are sinister child haters, there are many anti-levy citizens with no ulterior motives. I, for one, simply appreciate having actual truths presented (rather than fear invoking commentary and distortions I’ve read/heard). Making it appear that 3yrs of levy costs will be paid in a single yr is an example of distortion on the anti-levy side. Similarly, there are many examples distortions & less than true statements from the pro-levy side. Here’s one irt what levy $ will actually be used for:
It’s extremely disingenuous to say “specific funds” are for “specific items” of an overall budget. Basic accounting shows that the net impact of a levy is simply to increase the “overall budget” (even if presented as paying for specific items). Here’s an explanation of why (please try to understand that this simply explains the shell game of saying “where” certain $ goes (regardless of your opinion as to the need for the $) and is applicable in many other situations you may encounter besides this one:
Imagine an $8M budget spread into 10 buckets. If someone decided $8M wasn’t enough and wanted to request more $ they could simply put the entire $8M into buckets 1-8 and say “we need $2M (levy $) but it’s only for buckets 9 & 10” (maintenance & operations, or whatever your specific levy indicates). The net result of the additional $2M would simply be that the new budget is $10M instead of $8M. The shell game here is that they could just as easily have said the $2M is for buckets 1 & 2 or 3 & 5 or 4 & 7 etc. In other words, the “exact” place they “choose” to say the $ goes to is absolutely irrelevant because it’s all part of “one overall budget” that is being spent.
Regardless of your stance irt the actual need for the $ it’s a complete shell game when they say “don’t worry, the money is only for this bucket or that one”. It raises the Q of why do they need to use shell games to sell a levy; shouldn’t the actual need be strong enough so as not to require moving shells around?Could it be because they need to distract you from looking in some of the other buckets?..
Being “civic-minded” includes being “fiscally aware” of where/how the community spends ii’s money. Too many people fall into the word manipulation traps employed by pro-levy supporters as well as the exploitative “heart string” tactics of “it’s for the children”…