The expression about a wolf in sheep’s clothing stems from Matthew 7:15, recounting Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
The Legislature’s majority Democrats have a history of hiding bad policies, especially tax increases, below titles that sound harmless if not friendly but are highly misleading. This year has brought what seems like an above-average number of examples.
For instance, the bill introduced April 16 to increase the sales tax has the disingenuous title of “modifying the application and administration of certain excise taxes.” That certainly masks its true effect.
But as I write this, with little more than 48 hours to go in the Legislature’s 105-day regular session, the worst of the offenders may be House Bill 2049.
When introducing it two-thirds of the way into this session, House Democrats gave HB 2049 a title that is the purest of sheep’s clothing: “Investing in the state's paramount duty to fund K-12 education and build strong and safe communities.”
If approved, however, this policy would act like a ravenous wolf by opening the door to larger local school levies. That would be harmful in two ways.
First, larger levies mean bigger property tax increases. Second, it would enable funding disparities among districts, taking our state back to when students in school districts with high property values had big advantages over students in districts where property values are lower.
The original version of HB 2049 seemed more focused on targeting the 1% cap on the annual growth of property-tax rates than on allowing larger school levies. It would have tripled that 1% limit, which is exactly what the Senate Democrats tried to do in 2024 before running into a buzzsaw of public opposition, aided by Senate Republicans.
When we sounded the alarm about an even more expensive property tax hike proposed by Senate Democrats this year through Senate Bill 5798, almost 44,000 people went online to register as “con,” obliterating the previous record for opposition to a bill at the committee level. Hundreds gathered on the steps of the Capitol to demand that the tax hike be dropped.
All the public pressure convinced the House Democrats to drop any language about the 1% cap from HB 2049 before passing it over to the Senate on April 22. It was a clear victory for taxpayers — although we should expect to see Democrats make yet another attempt at taking out the 1% cap next year. They are too hungry for tax dollars to give up this soon.
Although the voices of the people protected the 1% limit for another year, the larger fight over property taxes is not over — and it is about your children’s future as well as your household budget.
Here’s why it matters. The state Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in the case of McCleary vs. State of Washington found the state was not upholding its constitutional duty to provide for K-12 education.
Legislators were not appropriating enough money for schools, causing districts to rely too much on local levies to pay for basics, like materials, supplies and operating costs. Property-rich districts could get the revenue by passing levies that were mere cents per thousand. Property-poor districts had to have levies that were multiple dollars per thousand, just to make ends meet.
It took years of bipartisan work following the ruling to negotiate and adopt, in 2017, a set of reforms that brought the K-12 funding system back into constitutional compliance.
The reforms included a cap on local levies to keep districts from becoming so reliant on them again. The limit was intended to level the playing field among districts, so those with a high-value property tax base wouldn’t have such an easy time raising money through local levies, compared to those with lower property values.
Since then, Democrats have inexplicably reduced the share of the state budget going to K-12, despite the Legislature’s constitutional responsibility to provide for education. Their solution, through HB 2049, is to give districts the authority to pursue larger local levies, which translates to higher property taxes.
Specifically, the majority would authorize districts to ask for another $500 per pupil through their levies, which is about a 20% increase right off, then it would let the authorization grow by inflation plus 3%.
Within several years, depending on inflation, this formula could increase levy authorization to about 60% more than districts have today.
The ability to ask for a larger levy doesn’t mean the voters will say yes. But in property-rich districts, it takes a much smaller increase to raise another $500 or $1,000 per child than in a property-poor district. Also, a larger levy proposal in a less-affluent district is likely to have a harder time at the ballot box.
It isn’t difficult to see where this could easily lead — and how it’s particularly unfriendly to the rural school districts that are common across southwest Washington, and most everywhere else in our state outside the central Puget Sound area.
If HB 2049 enables the property-rich school districts to raise significantly more dollars per child, it seems inevitable they will put that money toward programs that could never be available to students in districts with lower property values overall.
Also, such a change in the ratio of state versus local funding could easily set the stage for another lawsuit — “McCleary 2.0,” if you will. Not only would your tax dollars be required for the court battle, but Democrats could use a new court ruling as an excuse for pursuing even more tax increases than they are now.
Republicans don’t believe a child’s educational opportunities should be dictated by his or her ZIP code. Children in Morton or Mossyrock deserve the same shot at learning a trade or becoming a software engineer, physician, or lawyer as a kid on Mercer Island.
There’s more than enough money in the state treasury to fully fund K-12 without raising taxes. Besides, as the state’s paramount duty, it should be funded before anything else – which needs to be remembered anytime Democrats claim a tax increase is needed to support education.
The trouble is, giving schools a larger share of the budget would force Democrats to say “no” to other special interests, and that isn’t happening.
While many districts do a good job of stretching every dollar, Republicans also recognize there are concerns about increasing funding for schools — whether it’s state money or local — when a district’s spending priorities seem off. That is a subject deserving of discussion and debate, but it’s a conversation that needs to begin at the local level, meaning the school board.
The “$ave Washington” budget developed this year by Senate Republicans would provide $2 billion in additional funding to K-12, including $200 million more for special education and another $200 million increase for materials, supplies and operating costs. It wouldn’t require a single tax increase or make a single cut to the services that are most important to working families in our state. However, Democrats have said “no” to it two times.
Instead, they are determined to push through something worse than a straight-up property-tax hike: a bill that would open the door to big property-tax increases and also be tremendously unfair to countless students and their families. No wonder HB 2049 is dressed in sheep’s clothing.
As I write this, the Democrat tax bills still in play represent roughly $9 billion in state-level taxes — but close to $12 billion when the local costs are factored in, and the effect of this property tax bill is all local.
No new taxes are necessary, as the Senate Republican budget proves. But the wolves are ravenous, even though it’s the wrong direction for our state.
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Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.
