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WHEREAS, the Auburn School District receives the majority of its revenue from the state’s basic education
apportionment;
WHEREAS, the state’s basic education apportionment funds Auburn School District at different dollar amounts
compared to other school districts;
WHEREAS, these funding inequities do not reflect any rational differences in geography, demographics, student
population, cost of living, or any other educationally relevant variable, nor serve any compelling
government interest;
WHEREAS, these funding inequities have a compounding effect on other areas of education funding, including
employee benefit, special education reimbursements, and local taxpayers' ability to levy revenue for the
operation of schools;
WHEREAS, on November 2, 2007, King County Superior Court Judge Michael Heavey ruled in Federal Way
School District v. State that these funding disparities violate Article IX, section 2 of the Washington
Constitution, which requires the state legislature to provide for a general and uniform system of public
schools;
WHEREAS, Judge Heavey also ruled that these funding disparities violate the equal protection rights
of students, teachers; taxpayers under Article I, Section 12 of the Washington Constitution;
1. The { Unit Name Here } supports legislative efforts equalizing local school district funding statewide;
2. { Unit Name Here } supports passage of enabling legislation in our Washington State Legislature's 2009
session;
3. { Unit Name Here } directs its Secretary to communicate this Resolution to Governor
Christine Gregoire, Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe (Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee Chair),
Rep. Dave Quall (House Education Committee Chair and Appropriations Subcommittee on Education),
and all State Legislators whose districts include the Auburn School District.
ADOPTED by a quorum of { Unit Name } voting members { or Unit Officers} present at its October 14th,
2008 public meeting, as attested to by its Unit officers.
{ Unit Name }:
There are many definitions of 'Equal', everything from equal dollar amounts, to equality based on need,
to equality of opportunity, to equality of outcomes. A person could consider 'equal' to mean any of these
things, then support or oppose this resolution based on that definition.
It's important to realize that we are not writing legislation. We're telling our legislators that we want a
fair and equal State funding across the state. We're telling them that we understand that there are
disparities, that those disparities have no reasonable basis, and that we want K-12 funding to be fair and
equal.
Then, it's up to the Legislature to craft law to implement that desire. Their Basic Education Finance
Task Force has already started on that. The Legislature will move from this foundation to Basic Ed
Finance reform next session. We're simply telling our Legislators that it's important to us (their
grassroots constituents) that they come up with a fair distribution of our limited K-12 finance resources.