Opinion - Top opinion

POSTED: Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009

I-1033 Con: Initiative poses serious threat to education, other programs

Tim Eyman's latest initiative, 1033, poses a serious threat to education in Whatcom County and would be a disaster for our entire state.

Eyman claims that I-1033 could do no wrong, but the Office of Financial Management states that I-1033 would reduce funding available for education, health care and other services by $5.9 billion over the next five years. Cities and counties would lose $2.8 billion by 2015. There's no way we can lose that much without impacting kids in public schools, families on the state's Basic Health insurance and the safety of our communities.

To see what I-1033 will do to Washington, all we need to do is look to Colorado, where a very similar law defunded schools and colleges, cost jobs and resulted in fewer kids with health insurance.

Under this law, Colorado fell to 49th in K-12 spending, and ranked near the bottom in high school graduation rates. Parents were forced to step in and pay for basic schools supplies and activities. Things got so bad Colorado suspended the requirement that children be fully-immunized before enrolling in school, because there were not enough state funds to buy vaccines.

Eyman's initiative has the same rigid spending limits and arbitrary formulas that caused all this damage in Colorado. And we have no reason to believe the impacts of I-1033 would be any different in Washington or cause less damage.

Washington's public schools are already laying off teachers and librarians, and eliminating arts, music and sports. This year, school funding was slashed by hundreds of millions of dollars, and as a result, as many as 3,000 teachers and education employees are facing layoffs. Locally, Bellingham's public schools lost an estimated $3 million.

Funding for the state's colleges and universities was cut by $500 million this year. Courses are being cut, faculty and staff openings are not being filled. Millions of dollars are being taken from academic programs. Cuts to Western Washington University totaled $44 million. Western students must cope with fewer course sections even as they pay double-digit tuition increases.

When the economy improves, we could begin to reverse these massive cuts, but I-1033's rigid limit and formula would actually make these cuts permanent.

I-1033 will also force more cuts in the future. The initiative would apply a rigid formula of inflation plus population growth to determine the size of city, county and state budgets. But the costs of education and health care rise much faster than what this formula would allow. It fails to consider the growing portion of seniors in our population with greater needs for social and emergency services. I-1033's one-size-fits-all formula would apply to every single city and county in Washington ignores their individual needs and priorities. Under I-1033 there would be no exceptions, no way to respond to emergencies and no means to support local priorities. It's a recipe for disaster.

I-1033's negative impacts will extend beyond education into health care. Already, the state is being forced to drop approximately 35,000 people from its Basic Health Plan, make deep cuts to hospitals and community health clinics and sharply reduce home health care visits for vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities. I-1033 would also make these cuts permanent and worsen the already severe health-care crisis for thousands of families and seniors.

Eyman wants you to believe that the impacts of I-1033 will be confined to the State Legislature. But he's wrong. I-1033's impacts would extend far beyond the state capital and deep into our community's hospitals, classrooms, fire stations and neighborhoods.

I-1033 would lock in this recession's budget and force even deeper cuts in the future, making the health-care crisis even worse for thousands of Washington families, taking resources away from Washington's classrooms and students and making it harder to dig out of this recession.

We can look at what happened in Colorado and get an idea of what will happen to Washington if I-1033 passes this November. Just like in Colorado, our schools, colleges, teachers, seniors and business climate would suffer.

Democrats, Republicans, and Independents and more than 250 organizations are working together to defeat I-1033, including the Washington Education Association, AFT Washington, League of Education Voters, Community Health Network of Washington, Children's Alliance, Washington Hospital Association, AARP Washington, Washington Roundtable and the Washington Conservation Voters.

I hope you join us and vote "no" on 1033.

Bill Lyne is a professor of English at Western Washington University and serves as president of the United Faculty of Washington State.