Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal has requested nearly $2 billion in additional K-12 funding for the 2027-2029 budget cycle, stating that the state is again failing to meet its constitutional obligation to amply fund basic education. The request is being submitted to Governor Bob Ferguson. Of the total, $1.2 billion is designated as needed to satisfy the constitutional standard the Washington Supreme Court upheld in its 2012 school funding decision. The remainder would expand learning assistance for low-income students and restore funding for the Transition to Kindergarten program.
The request arrives as the share of the state operating budget dedicated to K-12 education has fallen from a peak of 51.6 percent in the 2019-21 biennium, the period immediately after the court ended its oversight of the funding case, to 42.4 percent in the House's 2026 budget proposal and 42.2 percent in the Senate's, according to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
What the request includes
The request would add $408.6 million for materials, supplies, and operating costs in the first fiscal year and $463.4 million in the second, the category known as MSOC. Reykdal cited rising insurance and utility costs that districts cannot absorb on their own. In May, roughly 130 districts enrolled in a risk management program were notified that their electricity rates would rise by an average of 45 percent for the current school year.
The proposal also includes $100 million to cover substitute teacher costs that districts currently bear, and nearly $225 million to improve salaries for classified staff and paraeducators. Reykdal wants to restore funding for Transition to Kindergarten, an early learning program cut by $27 million in the most recent state budget. Districts had begun preparing to cut teachers and student seats because of the cut.
Reykdal left universal free school meals out of this request, a goal he has long supported. He said that when districts are shutting down programs because they cannot afford insurance or utility bills, that is the bigger priority, and that meals are not protected as part of basic education under the constitution. Washington currently covers meals for about 70 percent of its public school students. Governor Ferguson has said he will use revenue from the state's new income tax on high earners to cover an estimated $140 million cost for universal meals in the 2029-31 budget.
McCleary and the meaning of ample funding
Reykdal's argument is a direct reference to the case that reshaped Washington school finance. In 2012, the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the state had failed its constitutional duty to make ample provision for the education of all children. The opinion described ample funding as support that is full and sufficient and goes considerably beyond mere adequacy, and it said that funding must come from dependable and regular tax sources.
The court kept jurisdiction over the case and set a compliance deadline of September 1, 2018. It found the state in contempt in 2014 for failing to produce a compliance plan, imposed sanctions of $100,000 per day in 2015, and lifted those sanctions on June 7, 2018, after the legislature fully implemented a new salary allocation model for the 2018-19 school year.
The 2018 compliance finding was tied to the legislature's full implementation of the statutory program of basic education in place at the time. The order did not address whether later increases in costs, such as the utility and insurance pressures districts now report, would be covered.
A similar request, a partial response
This is the second consecutive budget cycle in which Reykdal has pressed the same constitutional argument to the executive branch. For the 2025-27 biennium, he told the governor that OSPI identified a roughly $4 billion per year gap between current investment and what he considered adequate, and he requested less than $2 billion per year. He argued then that the funding increases adopted under the court's oversight reflected the school funding model in place at the time, and that the model was not built to reach investment levels sufficient to support the full range of student needs. The legislature did not fully adopt that request.
In February 2026, Reykdal said the House and Senate budget proposals deepen the governor's recommended cuts to education while adding billions in new investments elsewhere. He said recent history shows that litigation has been the only way the legislature has met its constitutional obligation to fully fund K-12 schools, and that the state appears headed in that direction again.
What the evidence says about the costs
Classified staff pay is one area of the new request that has already been examined in a prior cycle. The Washington Research Council analyzed OSPI's 2025-27 budget request and found that the classified staff salary allocation proposal would increase those allocations by 20 percent in the 2025-26 school year and 9 percent in 2026-27, with a later restructuring that splits classified staff into administrative and school-based groups.
The Council projected that under the proposal, allocations for administrative classified staff would exceed estimated teacher allocations by the 2027-28 school year, and school-based classified allocations would exceed teacher allocations by 2028-29. Because the state would likely need to raise teacher allocations in response, the Council said the substantial cost of the request was probably seriously understated.
That conclusion is not settled. OSPI's budget materials for the proposal set classified staff allocations at $67,325 for the 2025-26 school year and $73,384 for 2026-27, before the later split into an administrative allocation of $99,164 and a school-based allocation of $79,988 for 2027-28. The agency says low pay is the primary reason classified staff leave the profession, and the proposal aims to align allocations with competitive wages for recruitment and retention.