SEATAC — Gov. Jay Inslee will meet with both political parties’ leaders of the state Senate and House of Representatives today to explore chances for a fourth special legislative session.
The meeting is scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m. in the council chambers of Seatac City Hall. Inslee’s office has scheduled a press conference for 4 p.m.
The state Supreme Court urged Inslee to summon the Legislature into another conclave when the court levied sanctions Thursday for lawmakers’ failure to reform funding for public education.
All nine justices signed an order fining the state $100,000 a day until it satisfies an order to reform education funding. The money will go into a special fund for public schools.
The court last September found the lawmakers in contempt of its 2012 McCleary decision and ordered them to show progress toward a solution in the record-long 176-day session that ended July 10.
Inslee has said he favors a session to grapple with the decision in which the court ruled unworkable the state’s patchwork system of local levies to pay teacher salaries.
However, 24th District legislators — state Sen. Jim Hargrove of Hoquiam and Reps. Steve Tharinger and Kevin Van De Wege of Sequim — have told Peninsula Daily News they doubt that another overtime session would be productive.
The district encompasses all of Clallam and Jefferson counties and most of Grays Harbor County.
The legislators, all Democrats, noted that they had provided $1.3 billion in new funds for education and cut class sizes in grades K-3.
The Legislature isn’t scheduled to resume until January — by which the fines could total $15 million — although Hargrove and Tharinger said they would attend meetings in Olympia to address the problem in the interim.
The task they face is complex, they said, because they must funnel state funds to local schools for programs and salaries that now are paid by local levies — and must establish financial parity among the state’s 295 separate school districts.
The court has given the Legislature until 2018 to accomplish the goal but insisted that lawmaker show progress in their 2015 session that stretched into triple overtime and cost an extra $440,000.
Hargrove during the second of the three sessions proposed a capital gains tax for education, but the Republican-controlled Senate did not act on his bill.
Van De Wege warned that the Supreme Court ruling only would stiffen the GOP’s resistance to new taxes.
Meanwhile, he said, funds for the fines would be withdrawn from social service programs.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladaily
news.com.
