Joseph O’Sullivan & Katherine Long.
The budget gives a 3 percent cost-of-living raise to K-12 employees over the next two years, plus an additional temporary 1.8 percent increase that expires in 2017. It proposes a slight increase in health-care benefits for K-12 employees, but not enough, the Washington Education Association said, to keep up with rising costs.
Ordway said he expects lawmakers to suspend Initiative 1351. Still, he called the budget “one of the best education budgets in the history of the state.”
Rich Wood, spokesman for the Washington Education Association, said the one-time 1.8 percent pay increase does little to make up for the six years that the state did not pay teachers regular cost-of-living adjustments. Besides a 3 percent cost-of-living increase over the next two years, he said, there is no increase in base pay for teachers.
“People are already joking, and saying, ‘It’s like a tip,’ ” he said.
Seattle’s 2015-2016 $753,100,000 budget [PDF] for 51,175 students and 6,072 staff.
Much more on Madison’s 2015-2016 budget, here.