The legislature intends to continue providing local effort assistance funding to school districts. Local effort assistance provides schools in property-poor districts with funding for locally determined activities that enrich the state's program of basic education, thereby enhancing equity in students' access to extracurricular activities and similar enrichments. The purpose of these funds is to mitigate the effect that above average property tax rates might have on the ability of a school district to raise local revenues to supplement the state's basic program of education. These funds serve to equalize the property tax rates that individual taxpayers would pay for such levies and to provide tax relief to taxpayers in high tax rate school districts.
Local effort assistance funding is not part of the state's statutory program of basic education, nor are allocations for it part of the district's basic education allocation. Beginning September 1, 2019, and subject to RCW
28A.150.276, districts may use local effort assistance funding only to enrich the state's statutory program of basic education.