2026 Legislative Priorities

Students and superintendents visiting Olympia during the 2024 session.

Our students and their future success depend on the changes we make today to secure the funding our schools need. The superintendents of the 25 public school districts in south central Washington's ESD 105 region strongly recommend the following priorities toward maintaining a safe, high quality and equitable system of public education in our state.

Our region supports the WASA “Big 3” platform and urges the Legislature to continue prioritizing equity, stability, and adequacy in K–12 education. While we recognize the challenges of the current budget cycle, Washington’s education funding system remains broken.

We encourage lawmakers to:

Listen to the recommendations of state funding workgroups;
Support property-poor districts with stable, predictable funding that doesn’t overburden local taxpayers;
Reinvest in a salary structure that reflects the value of experienced, high-quality educators.

2025 PRIORITIES

Prioritize MSOC Funding: Sustain the Foundations of Basic Education

The costs of Materials, Supplies, and Operating Costs (MSOC) — including curriculum, technology, fuel, insurance, software subscriptions, and instructional tools — continue to rise, but state funding hasn’t kept pace.

Districts are forced to dip into local levies and reserves, threatening enrichment programs and core operations.

Action Request:

Reinvest any realized savings from declining enrollment or caseloads into MSOC.
Fully fund MSOC categories in the prototypical school model and provide guardrails to ensure funding is directed toward these essential needs.

Reduce Burdens: Address Unfunded Mandates & Inefficiencies

Despite progress in some areas, districts remain overwhelmed by mandates that are underfunded or offer little instructional return. These burdens drain time, capacity, and budgets.

A. Substitute Costs & Employee Benefits

Fully fund or improve programs like PFML and FMLA, that burden school districts with millions of dollars spent on substitute costs and impact student learning.
Reform the 630-hour rule that requires districts to provide benefits to substitutes who may not even seek them.

B. Public Records Burden

Create a rubric to evaluate and filter large-scale or disruptive public records requests.
Allow for reasonable fees when requests require significant time and staff redaction.
Example: One request generated over 30,000 emails requiring dozens of hours of processing

C. Sales Tax on Services

Support SB 5814 exemption for public schools.
School districts should not pay sales tax on services necessary for daily operations (e.g., training, repairs, consulting).

Defend & Advance Investments that Support Student Learning

In the face of fiscal constraints, student-centered funding must remain protected.

A. Preserve Local Effort Assistance (LEA)
These flexible funds are often used to backfill basic education gaps and support student programming in high-need districts.

Oppose any changes that would raise the levy floor or reduce eligibility, such as the idea of a $2.00 levy rate minimum.

B. Protect the Transition to Kindergarten (TTK)
TTK is helping districts close early learning gaps, especially in rural areas without high-quality preschool access.

Preserve this investment to support readiness and long-term student success.

C. Support Math Achievement
Support legislative focus on mathematics outcomes, especially 8th-grade proficiency.

Retain local control over instructional strategies and materials to ensure flexibility for districts to meet diverse student needs.

The Central Washington Legislative Advocacy Coalition remains united in advocating for a fully funded, equitable public education system for all students across our region. We recognize that this will be a challenging budget year for the state; however, education remains Washington’s paramount duty, and many of our districts continue to face deep and widening gaps between what the state funds and what it truly costs to serve students.

As we enter the 2026 session, we ask lawmakers to prioritize the areas that most directly impact teaching and learning. Our region urges the Legislature to fully fund Materials, Supplies, and Operating Costs (MSOC) so districts can keep pace with rising costs for curriculum, technology, insurance, transportation, and essential operational needs. We also ask for relief from unfunded or underfunded mandates, including the escalating costs of substitutes and increasingly complex and time-consuming public records demands.

We further encourage the protection of student-centered investments, including maintaining Local Effort Assistance (LEA), supporting Transition to Kindergarten (TTK), and advancing statewide efforts to strengthen mathematics achievement.

We remain aligned with the WASA “Big 3” platform and urge lawmakers to support stable, equitable funding that does not overburden property-poor communities and that reinvests in a salary structure that reflects the value of experienced educators. Even in a difficult budget year, we can and must ensure that basic education is fully funded and that every child in Washington has the opportunity to thrive.

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2026 Legislative Priorities

2025 PRIORITIES

Prioritize MSOC Funding: Sustain the Foundations of Basic Education

Reduce Burdens: Address Unfunded Mandates & Inefficiencies

Defend & Advance Investments that Support Student Learning

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