PHOENIX - Washington State's budget boosted education spending, a positive development for school districts and public universities, Moody's Investors Service said.
Gov. Jay Inslee signed the budget June 30 after much legislative wrangling and hand-wringing that was beginning to lead to talk of a potential state government shutdown. The two-year, $38.2 billion dollar state operating budget provided a significant boost in education spending spurred by a 2012 Washington Supreme Court finding that the state was not meeting a constitutional obligation to fully fund basic education.
In that case, McCleary v. State of Washington, the state's top court mandated $4.6 billion of new K-12 funding by 2018.
"Although exact spending levels are being finalized, the 2015-17 budget will add approximately $1.3 billion of K-12 operating funding," Moody's analysts wrote. "With this, the state will have implemented $2.7 billion of the $4.6 billion total, a solid 18% increase over the base spending allocation since the 2012 ruling."
The state's public universities will benefit from increased funding to offset tuition cuts of 15%-20% that are set to occur over the next two years.
Washington still has education funding challenges, Moody's said. Not only must it finish funding the McCleary mandate, it must also address 2014's Initiative 1351. That voter-approved measure mandated class size reduction in grades four through 12 by fiscal 2018, at an estimated cost of $2 billion per year. The legislature may, however, decide to temporarily suspend that requirement.
