It’s time for our legislators to do the job they were sent to Olympia to do. The legislature has been in contempt of the Supreme Court of Washington since 2014 for failure to develop a plan to fully fund K-12 education by Sept. 1, 2018. They must pass a budget to fully-fund education this legislative session or they will miss this deadline.

In addition, prior laws have created a situation in which school districts around the state are facing a loss of over 4 percent of their local-voter-approved property tax money – the levy cliff. In Northshore, we stand to lose about $4 million next school year unless this levy cliff is remedied. In Seattle, the loss is 10 times that, and since they set their budgets in March, they will be laying off teachers, assistant principals and support staff. The total loss to school districts statewide will be $500 million.

It is unacceptable that the members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which includes State Sen. Dino Rossi, who represents part of Northshore, refuses to even hold a vote on the bill to fix the levy cliff – SHB 1059. Our students will suffer without this fix.

Please send a message to Sen. Rossi and the members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee to do your job and pass SHB 1059.

Find their names and phone numbers here: http://leg.wa.gov/Senate/Committees/WM/Pages/MembersStaff.aspx

Email addresses to legislators follow the formula firstname.lastname@leg.wa.gov

Senator Rossi can be emailed at Dino.Rossi@leg.wa.gov

Nancy Chamberlain, Woodinville