SEATTLE (AP) — The budget proposal released Tuesday by Washington Senate Republicans indicates the Legislature's two chambers may not be very far apart on their plans to put new dollars into education.
The budget released Friday by House and on Tuesday by the Senate both put significant new money into basic education, as ordered by the Washington Supreme Court in the McCleary decision, give college students and their parents a break, help Washington State University get started building a new medical school, give public school teachers a raise and delay fulfilling the voters' request to shrink class sizes at every grade level.
The Senate budget proposal spends just $100,000 less on public schools than the House plan but neither tries to tackle the other big challenge in the McCleary decision: an overreliance on local tax levies for basic education.