Tahoma School Board
September 28, 2017
Tahoma School Board:
There has been much uncertainty spread throughout the education community about the impacts of the state’s ultimate response to the McCleary court decision. I am writing this letter for two reasons; to assure school districts that the state will very likely be responding to small, unforeseen impacts that the new education funding formula has created and to clarify the best I can how much extra money your district will be receiving and why I consider this a huge win for our community.
My colleagues and I have heard from school districts that have legitimate concerns around special education and transportation funding sources. OSPI has already responded to the special education concerns by sending out a letter to all districts making it clear that they can use “any and all means” to meet the demands of their special education population, which includes local levy dollars.
In terms of transportation, I am committed to passing legislation to clarify that if the state is not paying for all of your transportation needs, that districts need to be allowed to use local levy dollars for this purpose until the state assumes the full funding responsibility. I have already started discussions with my colleagues in Olympia to make sure we get this technical fix passed during the 2018 legislative session.
The second reason for this letter is to clarify why I think this is a giant win for our community. We will have additional dollars flowing into our schools while we also are able to provide tax relief for our families. We are all aware of the seniors on fixed incomes, our local small business owners, and the variety of middle class families in our districts, who will be appreciative of modest tax relief.
The Tahoma School District will receive an extra $17m in state funding starting in the 2019 and 2020 school years. The new law will require that Tahoma reduce their local levy by $9m per year, but that will still leave your students with an additional $8m in funding. At the same time you will be providing the largest property tax cut the residents of Maple Valley have ever seen. This is the type of homerun that very few school districts in the entire state will be able to achieve. I think we should all celebrate this success for both our students and our working families.
Best regards,
Senator Mark Mullet
5th Legislative District
