Keep an eye on Litzow | Letter

Published 7:00 am Thursday, March 3, 2016

We need to keep an eye on what Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, is doing in our name down in Olympia.

After single-handedly blocking a bipartisan effort to fix school financing this year as required by the state Constitution and the Supreme Court, Sen. Litzow somehow found the money to pay for charter schools, whose funding was also declared unconstitutional. Watch how he does it.

On Jan. 20, a partisan state Senate voted 27-20 to pass a bill Litzow co-sponsored, which sidesteps the court ruling and reinstates funding for charter schools by taking money from the state’s Opportunity Pathways Account. This account consists of state lottery money not tied to public schools.

The Opportunity Pathways Account currently pays for the state’s student financial aid programs. These programs help tens of thousands of students annually earn college credits, certificates, and degrees. Nice! I am sure Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are happy, anyway.

Bruce Becker

Mercer Island