Letter to the editor: Yelm’s school crisis started long before the levy

The conversation about Yelm Community Schools keeps stopping at the levy. But the levy is not where this story starts.

It’s a snowball. When Congress passed the federal special education law in 1975, it promised to pay 40% of the extra cost; it now pays less than 13%. Washington’s constitution makes basic education the state’s “paramount duty,” yet the state has long left districts paying basic costs with levy dollars. When our levy went away, there was nothing underneath.

In 2023–24, Yelm’s last full levy year, the district says levy dollars covered $1.5 million in special education costs that state and federal funding didn’t, and nearly $700,000 in insurance, gas and utility costs the state formula didn’t cover.

The levy also paid for things the state has never funded, like athletics and smaller class sizes. Those are community choices. Serving students with disabilities and keeping the heat on are not.

When the state put Yelm under financial monitoring in 2024, OSPI’s letter listed failed levies, COVID money running out without matching cuts, a $2.5 million drop in state levy-matching money, falling enrollment and rising costs.

Only one of those points at the district.

On Sept. 28, OSPI’s chief financial officer, T.J. Kelly, confirmed the district “has made significant reductions to staffing and services,” 163 positions since 2024 by the district’s count, but that without levy money it “relied heavily on one-time funding sources and remaining cash reserves.”

If the district’s finances don’t improve, he wrote, “it is possible that YCS will not serve students past the 2027–28 school year.”

People say, “Run it like a business.” A business can raise prices and choose its customers. A school district can do neither. It must serve every child who enrolls, and federal law requires every service a student with a disability needs, whatever it costs. When a business fails, it closes. When a district fails, the state can dissolve it.

OSPI says Yelm would most likely be “split into two or three different parcels” absorbed by neighboring districts. Kids on the same bus today could end up in different districts.

Yelm isn’t alone. State Superintendent Chris Reykdal says 11 districts are under state financial monitoring, with dozens more close behind.
Our Supreme Court said in the McCleary case that if state formulas cover only part of what it costs to “pay its teachers, get kids to school, and keep the lights on,” the state is not fully funding basic education. Keeping the lights on is getting harder: Puget Sound Energy is seeking a 15% electricity rate hike next year. The state raises school operating money only about 2–3% a year.

I’ve asked Sen. Jim McCune, Rep. Andrew Barkis and Rep. Matt Marshall to fund basic education in full, and our members of Congress to keep their 1975 promise. In January, lawmakers start writing the budget that funds the 2027–28 school year, the year Kelly warned could be Yelm’s last.

Please contact yours too: app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder.

Justin Wikoff
Yelm