WSSDA plans next round of legislative lobbying for school districts

Ritzville School Board member Scott Carruth recently attended a Washington State School Directors Association meeting in Federal Way. He gave an overview of the meeting at the June 24 Lind-Ritzville School Cooperative board meeting.

WSSDA is the only statewide organization representing school directors recognized by the state. Members meet and decide on issues to lobby lawmakers about.

According to a WSSDA flyer, the organization spends January to March “using the advocacy platform to influence legislation.” In March and April, members review the results and plan the next steps. Then, boards, directors and committees propose to amend or add legislative positions. Later in the year, the proposals will be reviewed, voted on and prioritized at the WSSDA Legislative Assembly.

The meeting Carruth was reporting on was for the proposal of ideas.

One such proposal at the meeting deals with the standardization of school district audit costs. Some in WSSDA would like the state, rather than the schools, to pay these costs, according to Carruth.

“The auditor comes, and then we pay the auditor based on the number of hours he stays here,” Carruth said at the Lind-Ritzville meeting. “There were several people that thought, number one, it’s a state audit so the state should pay for it, not the schools. And, number two, if that can’t happen, it should just be a set fee based on the number of students you have.”

Carruth also briefed the Lind-Ritzville board members on what to expect at the upcoming Legislative Assembly in September.

“For the last several years we have been talking mainly about McCleary,” Carruth said. “[We say] ‘give us the money we are supposed to get to run schools according to the state constitution.’ They [lawmakers] feel they have pretty much done that now, but we disagree.”

Carruth said the WSSDA is also looking into things that schools are required by law to do that cost money, but no longer serve any needs of students.

“If they want to give us something more to do, we want to say, ‘Fine, but take away some of this big pile here,” Carruth said.