November 23, 2012 -
SEATTLE, Wash. - Washington State Lawmakers are making their holiday school funding wish list and it's a short one: please send cash.
Lawmakers say they need money to provide free all-day kindergarten and bus service for about a million school children. They say having money would also take the pressure off local tax levies that help pay for basic education.
A down payment on all of that will cost at least a billion dollars in the next biennium to answer the Supreme Court's recent order to pay for the Legislature's own education reform plans by 2018.
With the court decision hanging over them, lawmakers will face an even greater conundrum when they convene in January. They'll have to figure out how to fund all the necessary elements while trying to fill the budget deficits.
