WA is a great place to live. Why can’t we have good schools and enough cops? | Opinion

In terms of public policy, in Washington state it is the best of times, and it is the worst of times.

By every measure, this is one of the most successful states in the nation, with a very strong economy. And yet we are faced with an embarrassing and puzzling inability to meet basic needs, including uniform school funding, law enforcement, mental health services and highway maintenance.

Next year we will elect a new governor. Once elected, our new leader should bring stakeholders together to negotiate a grand bargain to meet these basic needs.

Let’s start with the problems before moving on to the solution. In our state, there is no more persistent and vexing problem than the state’s refusal to meet its constitutional paramount duty to fully fund basic education without the use of local levies. Despite decades of effort to solve this problem, using the state’s own data it is clear that, due to disparate levels of local funding, particularly in terms of school construction, the education experience differs depending on where a student lives. Our school funding system is still unstable, unconstitutional and unfair to kids.

Violent crime is on the rise, while the number of police officers is at an all-time low. One of the main drivers of the increase in crime is the current restriction on the growth of county funding. County governments pay for courts, jails, prosecutors and police, primarily through the property tax. Capping the growth of that tax at 1% annually — far less than the rate of inflation — means that just when we need more cops, corrections officers and prosecutors counties across the state are being forced to slash their budgets due to our bizarre system of funding county government.

A federal judge has once again sanctioned the state for failing to provide mental health services to jail inmates with severe mental illnesses. For nearly a decade the state has been ordered to create a system to avoid warehousing the mentally ill in jail and has simply hasn’t gotten the job done.

And finally, despite increasing transportation spending, the State’s Secretary of Transportation says we are on “a glide path to failure,” because we haven’t adequately funded highway maintenance.

Washington has the 12th highest taxes in the nation, and state revenues have consistently risen, so why can’t we fund basic services?

Some of this is structural. We fund highway maintenance with the gas tax, which is a diminishing revenue stream as people drive less and buy more electric vehicles. Capping counties’ general fund property tax revenue growth per year at 1% prevents criminal justice funding from even keeping up with inflation. Without meaningful limitations on the size and use of local levies, school funding will always be unequal across the state.

Layered on top of this dilemma is the fact that our sales tax-based tax system is the most regressive in the nation. The less you make the more you pay as a percentage of your income.

Solving these problems will cost billions of dollars and involve fundamental questions about state policy. Shall we finally limit the use of levies, which impacts local union bargaining? Should we use the general fund, or perhaps a mileage charge to help fund transportation? Should we lift the county property tax cap, or give counties another way to pay for criminal justice? And is it time to talk seriously about an income tax or other changes to our tax structure?

A Band-Aid won’t fix this. And I don’t believe this can be piecemeal. You probably can’t fix any of it without major tax reform, which means all these issues are linked together.

This is too massive for Democrats to do unilaterally. Even if they could get the votes in the House and Senate among their own members — a very big if — if they don’t involve major state stakeholders, they would likely face massive opposition, lawsuits and voter initiatives. Tim Eyman is always lurking.

This is why the next Governor should pull together business, labor, other major stakeholders and legislative leaders from both parties to negotiate a Grand Bargain. Wipe the slate clean, put everything on the table in terms of taxes, spending and governance.

Democrats will want stable funding for education and mental health, and a fairer tax system, while Republicans and the business community will want more funding for law enforcement and a tax system less reliant on the Business and Occupation tax. I believe a deal could be made, perhaps a deal in the form of a constitutional amendment.

Washington is a great place to live. And In recent years, Governor Inslee and the Democrats have focused on major issues like the climate, housing and gun control.

Now is the time for a new Governor to pull together a broad coalition to focus on something new and different: basic core state services.

Chris Vance is a former Republican state legislator, King County Council member and State Party Chairman who left the GOP in 2017. Vance and his wife, Annmarie, live in Sumner.

This story was originally published July 31, 2023 at 5:00 AM with the headline "WA is a great place to live. Why can’t we have good schools and enough cops? | Opinion."