In what is known as the McCleary decision, the Washington state Supreme Court ruled that the state was not properly funding K-12 education.

After the 2014 legislative session, the court was very lenient because they could have cited the Legislature for contempt of court; however, they exercised leniency but at the same time, sent them a very clear message to address the McCleary decision and fix the education funding problem in the 2015 legislative session.

At the end of a legislative session that lasted six months (which included special sessions), the Legislature increased the education funding and sent a required progress report to the state Supreme Court. Afterwards, both state schools Superintendent Randy Dorn and top officials in the Federal Way school district agreed with me that the Legislature did not comply with the McCleary decision.

The State Supreme Court recently agreed, giving the Legislature a failing grade and fined them $100,000 a day. When local media announced the news, one reason they cited was the fact that the Legislature failed to address a more than 30-year-old, outdated and grossly unfair school funding formula that creates “haves” (i.e. Seattle, Bellevue, etc.) and “have-nots” (such as Federal Way) among the school districts. The money goes into a dedicated education fund and can be refunded back to the state if and when the problem is finally fixed.

So the $64,000 question is, what is wrong with our legislators? Why can’t they get the message and fix the problem? I wish I had the answer to that question but instead of fixing the problem, they chose to come up with another Band-Aid solution. Bad idea. So now the ball is in the governor’s court and it appears that he will call a special session once legislators come up with the solution that will satisfy the Supreme Court. Knock on wood.

Gary Robertson, Federal Way