The Republican plan - to force a stalemate - is not helpful. And let's be clear, that is their plan. They will not accept any of the workable plans from the Democrats and they refuse to put forward a workable plan of their own.

Also, that levy swap idea stinks. It takes the locally approved taxes and distributes the funds to the state. Local communities choose to tax themselves to raise money to spend on their local schools. They do it every three years and every three years they get the opportunity to say yes or no. For the state to take that money any spend it in communities that did not choose to tax themselves is an extraordinarily bad idea. This will also take away from the communities that chose to tax themselves the opportunity to subject that tax to a vote every three years.

"Levy swap" Nice name for theft of local funds by the state.

The courts should stamp that out for the treason to the will of local voters that it is. Who owns the school buildings? Does the state think it owns the school buildings too?

The school districts and the people in them own the buildings and their levy and operation funds. Thus,those who came up with the idea of levy swap are intellectually and ethically challenged.

If the state wants levy equalization, just end all local levies and have a flat state rate in all districts.

What is missing from the Democrat Plan? How about some cost savings? How about doing simple things like verifying citizenship status before issuing any form of State License? Mandating E-verify? Verification of citizenship qulaification before granting benefits? Non-emergency Medical care?

The flow through to the School Funding issue could easily result in a half a Billion Dollar a year savings. If illegal aliens do not have the ability to work in Washington, or recieve benefits, they will move somewhere where they can. Instead of growing an Illegal Alien population at double digits a year, we as a State might be able to gain some control on the budget lines items that currently address their presence.

Cameron,
How do you propose that Washington get its annual $1.4 billion apple crop, its $363 million sweet cherry crop, its $189 million pear crop and its numerous other labor intensive agricultural crops harvested without immigrant farm laborers, many who are undocumented and who have children in school during harvest seasons? Some of those students were born in the U.S. and are legal citizens of this country. Others were brought here by their parents at very young ages. The harvests that these workers bring in put reasonably priced food on your table and drive a significant portion of the state's economy. Without them, our agricultural industry would collapse.

By recruiting and hiring legal workers. There is no need for illegal immigrants for farmwork.

I think the whole point of the McCleary decision is that the legislature has not been meeting their constitutional duty for 20 to 30 years.
The argument that we need to raise taxes to fund education is a false one. The biennial budget is $32B. K-12 funding used to represent 51% of the budget, it currently represents 43%. That 8% difference is approx. $2.5B. That is enough to fully fund K-12 education. The state constitution and the courts have said funding K-12 is the "paramount duty," that must be funded before any other programs. Clearly the state has enough money to do this.
Any talk of raising taxes should be in the form of raising taxes to pay for other state programs that are need. The legislature, both Democrats and Republicans do not want to do this and they have not wanted to for 30 years. My guess is because they know voters will vote "yes" for education, but not much else.

I really no longer care about education funding, since the charter schools passed. I figure any education funding will just go to individuals like Michael Milken (Knowlege Universe--largest for-profit K-12 corporation in the world; and yeah the Junk Bond King). I hope no education funding gets passed, and I hope the next Seattle School District levy fails. I have no wish to pay taxes to corporations.

"Republicans will see whether the final Democrat proposal". The correct adjective is Democratic. Use Democrat as an adjective only if you intent to signal that you disrespect you Democrats. Such disrespect is not worthy of Crosscut.

Mr. V the crop gets in the same way it always has, manual labor. The same way it did when I was younger and worked in the orchards. Guest worker programs that actually enforce the "return home after the season" would be desired. If you support illegal aliens to pick your fruit, I guess you prefer to pay your higher food costs through Schools, Jails and Social Services along with violations of immigration laws. So what is the actual cost? Legal labor would be far cheaper.

As far as respecting Democrats goes, this publication bends over backwards to give Democrats and Democratic Administrations far more respect than their performance deserves. We are about to experience four years of a "secret sauce" Inslee Administration, I would appreciate at least a bit of balance for a change.

The fact is, more than 70 percent of the farm labor force needed to harvest the state's crops are undocumented. There are simply not enough other "manual laborers" willing to do the work. I grew up in "The Fruitbowl of the Nation" and routinely worked in the orchards and warehouses there. And your bigoted comments about paying higher food costs or costs for jails, schools and social programs are simply that.
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2016720936_apusfoodandfarmapplepickers.html
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2016507956_gregoire15m.html
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2016652587_farmlabor31m.html

And if the 70 percent was not available for harvest, what would the AG community do? Find an alternative, legal source of labor perhaps? probably. The fact that we have substanitially higher education costs, Costs of incarceration and Social Safety net cost because of the presence of over a Quarter Million Illegal aliens in the State of Washington is not "bigoted", they are simply a facts. I think it goes to the weakness of the arguement for encouraging more illegal immigration to refer to anyone who believes in upholding the law as a bigot. It's far easier to demonize than to discuss rational solutions.

I think there are better ways for the state to financially support AG, than providing huge social benefits to entice low paid workers. The state could provide $5/hr of health benefits per hour of work. Or $5/hr of college funds per hour of work. Wouldn't giving state benefits to ANYONE who took these jobs draw in more legal residents, college students, and low wage workers?

I think the best way for the state to fund higher education is to provide matching funds for every documented hour a person works a low paid job in Washington.

Incentivize work. Do not incentivize having children that the state has to support, which is what the current system is. Dollars based on hours, not dollars based on head count.

WayneT says what the article should have acknowledged; it's been a conscious choice of our legislature and executive to inadequately fund schools. I would assume this is because of a general acceptance of local levies in some areas (Western Washington in general and King County in particular). I think the shift of funds has gone principally to DSHS. If WayneT is suggesting that DSHS distributions be put to a levy I would agree.

Bingo Keith!

The big increases in the state's budget over the past 20-30 years has been in social services, going from 30% to 37% of the state's budget!

I'm not saying that we do not need these programs but do you think the majority of voters would vote to raise their taxes to pay for them?

I think the Legislature should simply ignore the Supreme Court's ruling. It is a blatant usurpation of legislative power. Absent that, then perhaps it's time to follow Wisconsin's lead, break the teacher's union, and cut their wages and benefits. The state's taxpayers should not succumb to blackmail.