The Senate is clearly committed to position Washington to participate in the Race to the Top for federal education dollars. We passed our proposal to do just that, Senate Bill 6696, on a solid, bipartisan 41 to 5 vote.
The Senate also completely supports increased funding for our K-12 system and intends to continue to honor our commitment to ensure education is our state's paramount investment as required under our Constitution.
However, in its debate on SB 6696, the House has added language from a separate bill, HB 2776, onto our Race to the Top proposal, committing to spending over a billion more in basic education beyond the commitment made last year by passing House Bill 2261.
That language does not have the same strong bipartisan support in the Senate, where many senators believe that in order to commit to spending billions more in basic education, we must first identify revenue to back up that future obligation.
The Senate would like to see SB 6696 move forward with just the Race to the Top language to ensure that we as a state are well positioned to compete for the Race to the Top grant.
HB 2776 is notable policy that deserves to be discussed on its own merits. But bringing it into the separate discussion of how to qualify for Race to the Top money only muddies the Senate’s important proposal to compete for these winnable federal funds.
By passing HB 2261 last year obligating the state to expand what we consider our constitutionally mandated obligation for basic education, we promised to increase funding to support that enhanced definition by at least 2018. We have in essence, already put our stake in the ground and obligated the state to future funding. The promises represented by HB 2261 are constitutionally protected obligations that we are now bound to uphold.
In his recent ruling regarding the state’s obligation to fund basic education, King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick writes, “Without funding, reform legislation for basic education may be an empty promise.”
The Senate agrees. We must not only maintain our constitutional obligation to provide ample funding for our K-12 system we must also be fiscally responsible by identifying proposed fund sources.
The Senate has passed both a balanced budget and the revenue package necessary to support that budget. While the Senate absolutely agrees that our K-12 schools need additional support, we believe in passing legislation we know we can fund.
We are willing to take the hard votes to fulfill the original obligations set in HB 2261. And we are willing to take the hard votes in order to ensure that the commitments represented in HB 2776 are more than an empty promise.
However, that is a discussion separate from our Race to the Top discussion, and it’s a discussion that has yet to occur. In the meantime, we remain committed to moving forward our Race to the Top proposal on its own considerable merits.