PORT ANGELES — State lawmakers are faced with “tough decisions” in the coming years to solve the education funding problem, retiring state Sen. Jim Hargrove told Port Angeles business leaders this week.
Hargrove, who announced in March that he would not seek re-election, said the state needs to come up with $7.3 billion to fulfil leftover obligations of the McCleary decision by the state Supreme Court and to cover the cost of a state initiative to lower class sizes.
“I believe they’re going to get it done,” Hargrove told Port Angeles Business Association members Tuesday.
“We’ve gone right up to shutting government down a couple of times in this state, but we’ve got it done. And I believe that in this state that there still is the will to do that.
“I just won’t be there to be in the middle of it.”
Hargrove, 62, will retire when his current term expires at the end of this year.
The Hoquiam Democrat has spent 32 years in the state Legislature, having served in the House of Representatives from 1985 to 1992 and the Senate since 1993.
He represents the 24th Legislative District, which covers the North Olympic Peninsula and much of Grays Harbor County.
Hargrove spent the past four years as the budget lead for the Senate Democrats.
“There has not been a more ferocious and effective senator or representative on behalf of the 24th District,” said Phil Kitchel, PABA vice president and former Clallam County commissioner.
“We will sorely miss him in the future.”
Hargrove reflected on his tenure and the fiscal challenges of the future in an hourlong talk at the PABA breakfast meeting at Joshua’s Restaurant.
Accomplishments
He listed the Becca Bill, crime prevention initiatives, mental health legislation and his efforts to maintain a viable timber industry on the Olympic Peninsula as some of his chief accomplishments.
“I’ve spent my life trying to love God and love my neighbors myself, which I’ve tried to demonstrate in my service as a legislator,” Hargrove said.
“I’ve worked to try to do things for my constituents and the people of the state, and I’m still going to be doing that, even though I won’t be doing it in the Senate.”
Standing ovation
Hargrove received from PABA members a standing ovation, a set of folding chairs, a bandana and a pair of Harley-Davidson sunglasses for his motorcycling hobby.
He opened his presentation by addressing the challenges of working in a politically divided government.
“People have hugely different opinions of the world, and dealing with the Senate Republicans and the House Democrats is kind of like the Arabs and the Israelis,” Hargrove said.
“Not only do they not get along, but they live in completely different worlds. . . . Trying to bridge that gap takes a lot of work.”
Hargrove presented a diagram depicting the state’s operating budget with color-coded circles of varying sizes showing how much is spent on public schools, human services, health care, higher educations, debt, public safety and corrections, operations, other eduction, natural resources and the judicial and legislative branches.
‘Death Star’
A particularly large circle that Hargrove described as the “Death Star” represents the $7.3 billion needed for Initiative 1351 and the remaining $400 million on the McCleary obligation.
The Death Star dwarfed most of the other circles on Hargrove’s diagram.
“You will hear some people say, ‘Oh we don’t need to raise taxes at all. All we need to do is prioritize,’ ” Hargrove said.
“Well, if you take the size of that [Death Star] and look at the size of all of these other planets in our state government spending, which one are you going to wipe out?”
Initiative 1351 was delayed by four years but comes back into the four-year calculation in the next budget cycle, Hargrove said.
While the state Supreme Court said local levies cannot be used for basic education under McCleary, half of the local levies in the state fund teachers’ salaries, Hargrove said.
“So in order for us to finish the job — actually not us, them — to finish the job, they’re going to have to figure out how to get about $2.2 billion a biennium out of levies and funded by the state,” Hargrove said.
“There are numbers of ways to do that. You could look at different types of taxes, whether it be capital gains or something else like that. There’s also the possibility of raising the state tax levy and limiting local levies, so in a sense, it’s kind of a swap there.”
School levies, which are based on property values, vary from district to district.
The Hoquiam-area local school levy is about $5 per $1,000 of assessed valuation compared to $1.35 for Seattle, yet Seattle raises far more money per student because of discrepancies in property value, Hargrove said.
“I hope part of the solution will be equalizing these investments in communities so that every kid in the state is getting the same amount of money for their education and every taxpayer on their property tax is paying roughly the same,” Hargrove said.
Using his diagram, Hargrove predicted a “collision of planets” in the coming years.
“On top of [Initiative] 1351, the very next year, [Initiative] 1366 passed, which potentially lowers our sales tax by a penny,” Hargrove said.
I-1366 would lower the state sales tax from 6.5 percent to 5.5 percent.
The state Supreme Court is considering an appeal of a King County Superior Court ruling that found the initiative was unconstitutional.
Public schizophrenic
“So the public in general — and I can be very candid now since you don’t have to vote for me — is schizophrenic,” Hargrove said.
“You know, vote for more spending and less taxes at the same time. And so that’s what’s handed to the Legislature.”
“The math just doesn’t add up,” Hargrove said.
“So that’s one thing I’d like to just try to get across to people. There are solutions. The solutions are difficult.”
Looking ahead, the Legislature will have to come up with about $600 million for state pension liability and underfunded pension systems, $40 million for a children’s mental health lawsuit and another $40 million to pay independent home care providers overtime for hours they previously volunteered.
Becca legislation
Hargrove said his 1993 Becca legislation, a set of laws meant to keep at-risk kids from falling through the cracks, was “one of the most important laws that I was able to work on in my career.”
“Back in 1995, we had over 1,500 juveniles in juvenile prisons in this state,” Hargrove said.
“The last count, I believe right now there’s 460. And we haven’t decriminalized anything.”
Crime prevention and reducing recidivism has been one of Hargrove’s main focuses, he said.
“Not only does it save taxpayers money,” he said, “it saves victims.”
Hargrove said he was proud of legislation he introduced that addressed co-occurring disorders, the combination of drug and alcohol addiction and mental health problems.
The legislation that became known as the Hargrove tax or Hargrove fund created a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax for local jurisdictions to provide wrap-around services for the chemically addicted and brain-disordered.
Forest management
As a forester, Hargrove said forest management can be “part of the solution to climate change.”
“I think that the science behind that is accurate and it’s real persuasive,” he said.
“I think that there’s a real healthy future for the forest management on the Olympic Peninsula as we start to convince our urban neighbors in Puget Sound that it’s much better to build with wood than with steel and concrete.”
Virtually all of the legislators that Hargrove has encountered in the past 32 years have been “interested in making things better,” he said.
“Now, people have widely different opinions of what is better and how you’re going to get to that, but don’t question their motives,” he said.
“Their motives are they really want things to be better, and they really are working hard to do that.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
