From our news partners at The Seattle Times: Seattle Mayor Ed Murray proposes a $58 million, four-year levy to pay for the first phase of an ambitious plan to make high-quality preschool free for poor families and affordable for others.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray believes that making preschool free or at least affordable for all families in Seattle would be his most important work in office. But he doesn’t want to rush it.
On Thursday he proposed placing a four-year, $58 million property-tax levy on the November ballot that would focus first on boosting the quality of existing programs, then on ramping up enrollment.
The “demonstration phase” would fund preschool for 2,000 children in 100 classrooms by 2018, according to the plan he submitted to the City Council on Thursday.
“Giving all of our children a fair and equal chance to thrive in school, to live productive and prosperous lives is, again, the most important thing that I will ever do as mayor,” Murray said at a news conference.
The cost would be about $43 a year for the owner of a Seattle home valued at $400,000, according to the city.
The money would go to pre-K providers that meet the city’s quality requirements, to be used to improve their services and provide free or subsidized slots to families of all income levels.
The city would cover the entire cost — estimated at almost $11,000 a year per child — for families making up to twice the federal poverty level (four a family of four, that would amount to $47,700 a year). Families making more would pay a share of the cost determined on a sliding scale.
A family of four making almost $167,000 a year, for example, would get a 50 percent break on tuition. Even families making more than $238,500 would get a 10 percent discount.
Supporters of universal preschool argue that children from low-income homes do better in classrooms that include families with higher incomes, and the partial tuition those families contribute would help stretch taxpayer dollars.
