Yesterday Governor Inslee released his plan to raise money for K-12 schools to respond to the Washington State Supreme Court decision to fund basic education.

The heart of Governor Inslee’s plan focuses on closing seven tax exemptions to provide for $200 million additional funds to support basic education.

The plan would target the additional funds towards two specific areas within basic education:

• Support for well-equipped classrooms. The funds would be used to ensure classrooms are properly equipped with materials, supplies, and curricula.
• Restoration of voter-mandated teacher cost-of-living salary increases (I-732).

The funds would come from closing seven tax exemptions that the Governor proposed to close in 2013. The plan would repeal or refund:

• Use-tax exemption for extracted fuel (except hog fuel);
• Sales tax exemption on bottled water;
• State portion of sales tax to nonresidents;
• Used-car trade-ins worth more than $10,000;
• Public-utility tax deduction for the in-state share of interstate transportation;
• Sales tax exemption for  janitorial services; and
• Preferential business and occupation tax rate for resellers of prescription drugs.

The Governor’s plan will now go to the Legislature for consideration.