BELLINGHAM - The best ways parents can support their child's education and their school is to pass the tax levies and volunteer as much as possible, Gov. Chris Gregoire said Thursday, Nov. 3, while at Shuksan Middle School.
School districts around Washington are bracing for another round of budget cuts, after Gregoire unveiled a list of items to possibly remove from the state budget. Included in the $2 billion proposal is increasing class sizes, reducing or eliminating funding for intervention programs and reducing levy equalization funding for property-poor districts that can't raise much revenue through taxes.
"The only place we could go was non-basic education," she said, specifically adding about levy equalization funding: "We tried to delay it. We could have taken it mid-year and they would have no way to make it up ... Possibly now it's in line with levies."
In February, all seven Whatcom County school districts, along with others across the state, will be running replacement levies for maintenance and operations expenses. Ferndale, Lynden, Meridian, Mount Baker and Nooksack Valley school districts all received levy equalization funding in 2011; if the state Legislature agrees with Gregoire's proposal, those districts would receive less money in the future.
"We need to pull together as a community and as a state to get through this," she said.
Gregoire was in Bellingham to discuss the state budget with a classroom of sixth-grade students at Shuksan.
"We're not getting enough money into our state, so Mr. (Marty) Brown (director of the Office of Financial Management) and I have to cut things because we have to live within our means," she told students after explaining how sales tax and the state revenue system works.
"Of all the things we had to do, one of the things that hurt the most that we had to cut is education."
Visibly excited students asked her a few questions about her favorite subject - English - and her hobbies - being outside and with family. But much of the discussion focused on college and Gregoire's experiences at the University of Washington and Gonzaga University.
Thursdays each week at Shuksan are College Day, during which students discuss different aspects of higher education and teachers try to get them excited about continuing after high school.
Gregoire echoed that sentiment, explaining to students that college graduates make more money in their lifetime than people who don't continue their education. When she asked who was planning to attend college, almost every hand went up.
But after talking with students, she said the state's universities and colleges are facing tough times with continued budget cuts and that the schools have reached the top of what they can ask people to pay in tuition.
"They can either cut quality, which I vehemently oppose, or cut access, which is hard" with more people looking for work, she said.
Since all education funding is tied at least partially to state sales tax, Gregoire reiterated the need for increased revenue to end deep cuts.
"Congress' inaction made it so consumers are not buying," she said, adding that it's mostly the small businesses that are "hurting." But she also said there are positive signs in the state economy, with Boeing, Microsoft and other companies in the life sciences, health, and information technology industries.
"If Congress had acted in August ... we'd be on the road to recovery," she said minutes before being mobbed by students wanting to meet her. "In the meantime, it has got to be neighbors looking out for neighbors, co-workers looking out for co-workers."
