Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, talks to parents about the highly capable program at the Centralia Middle School in October 2016. Braun's wife, Marlo, will finish out the Legislature's third special session as he fulfills his commitments with the U.S. Navy Reserves.
With the regular state legislative session set to end on Sunday, lawmakers are running out of time to fully fund education and finalize the budget.
The state government has three budgets: the operations budget, the capital budget and the transportation budget. The operations budget funds most state services, including education and mental health services. The capital budget funds local projects and grants such as park construction or flood reduction efforts. The transportation budget funds road and traffic infrastructure as well as the Washington State Patrol.
As chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, plays a prominent role in drafting the state’s operating budget. However, he said he is also working to bring state dollars to local projects through the capital budget.
“For me it was all about flooding,” Braun said about local capital budget projects.
In the proposed Senate budget, $42 million from the state has been allocated for flood reduction projects in the Chehalis River basin. The Office of the Chehalis River Basin has also been created within the Department of Ecology, officially created July 1, 2017, if passed, to work with stakeholders throughout the region on long-term fixes.
“Their job is not to regulate the process, it is to find solutions,” Braun said during an interview with The Chronicle Monday. “We’ve got to bring everyone along.”
The Chehalis Basin is the second largest basin in the state, Braun said. It has a regional impact which is now being realized, and more people and groups have been brought into the discussion.
In the House of Representatives budget, $48 million has been allocated. Rep. Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis, was one of the driving forces behind that money.
“I worked with all the other stakeholders to explain the importance of these projects,” he said.
Both budgets fall short of the $50 million recommended by the Governor’s Work Group, Braun said. With federal funds, the gap can be closed, but Braun is hesitant to rely on them and is not sure how they would be used.
Regardless, Braun is pleased to see an increase in funds to the basin because historically getting state dollars was difficult.
“I give a lot of credit to the Governor’s Work Group over the last few years,” Braun said.
Moving forward, Braun hopes to address salmon and fish habitat conservation efforts along with flood reduction, which was the focus of an exhaustive Department of Ecology environmental impact statement that provided four alternatives to address both matters.
Numerous other projects in the area found funds in the capital budget, including improvements to Green Hill School, a Discover! Children’s Museum in Chehalis and infrastructure updates at Winlock to create an industrial park on land owned by Benaroya Company.
In the operating budget, fully funding education has been the primary issue since the 2012 McCleary lawsuit when the state Supreme Court ruled the Legislature wasn’t adequately doing so.
Republicans and Democrats each have their own plan to resolve the McCleary decision, and each has passed its chamber along party lines.
In the Republican plan, which Braun is a chief architect of, local levy rates would be uniform across the state. The plan introduces a per-student funding model, opposed to the prototypical model currently in place, Braun said.
A prototypical model funds schools based on average sizes of similar schools.
The plan proposed by Democrats aims to reduce class sizes, increase funding for vocational classes, increase the number of guidance counselors, establish a statewide minimum teacher salary and increase funding to advanced classes and English as a second language classes.
Braun said the Democrats’ plan doesn’t provide a means for funding beyond further taxing residents.
In the Republican plan from the Senate, Braun said, area school districts would see an increase in funding and a decrease of their levy rate. Other districts such as Seattle and Bellevue may see an increase.
Under his plan, the funding per student in the Centralia School District would increase by $1,220 to $13,500 from $12,290 with a district-wide increase of $4.9 million, according to data from Braun’s office. Those figures include state and federal dollars.
In the Chehalis School District, an additional $1,440 would be added per student in the 2018-19 school year, increasing from $11,500 to $12,900 with a district-wide increase of $4.5 million.
The levy rate in Centralia is expected to drop by $1.38 per $1,000 assessed value from $2.93 to the estimated state rate of $1.55. In Chehalis, the rate would drop by 87 cents from the current rate of $2.42 per $1,000.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal said the GOP plan invests in career and technical training. He is concerned about the lack of teacher compensation and whether this is a long-term solution.
“The sustainability of the proposal is also a concern. The proposed increases in education funding rest on higher state revenue forecasts, cuts to critical state services, and use of one-time fund balances,” Reykdal said in a March 21 statement. “What happens when we have another recession? Will education and other critical services suffer as a result?”
Braun noted that under the Republican plan, the starting salary for teachers would be increased and superintendents would be given more power to determine raises for educators.
