Teachers unions are big donors to levy measure

The largest contributors to the campaign to allow school levies to pass with a majority of the vote are teachers unions — state, local and national.

The Washington Education Association is the largest single contributor to date, with $819,231 in cash and in-kind donations. The National Education Association is tied for second with Seattle venture capitalist and League of Education Voters co-founder Nick Hanauer. Each has contributed $450,000.

Regional and local offices of the WEA, including the Seattle Education Association, have donated an additional $318,575 including both cash and in-kind.

Added together, contributions from the various arms of the teachers union add up to about $1.6 million, or more than half of the $2.97 million raised.

The other half has come from a variety of sources, including $40,952 from 142 school PTAs, $125,000 from businesses. Campaign officials say that 1,600 individuals have given, too.

Katherine Binder, who's active with the PTA in the Bellevue School District, is another large contributor, at $255,000.

Most of the money is going into television ads, but volunteers also have made more than 120,000 phone calls to encourage pro-education voters to support the measure.

The resolution's supporters want school levies to pass if they receive support from the majority of voters, rather than the 60 percent that's now required.

School districts rely on that local money to make up an average of 17 percent of their annual budgets. Most districts succeed in passing levies (which must be renewed every few years), but sometimes not without running two or more campaigns. The measure wouldn't change the supermajority requirement for school bonds, just levies.

The resolution's opponents, who have no organized campaign, say that the state Constitution requires any government unit that wants to raise property taxes above $10 per $1,000 of assessed value to earn 60 percent of the vote.

For a variety of reasons, school districts don't have other ways to raise money beyond what they receive from the state Legislature. School districts have long argued that what the state provides is inadequate.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359