With a critical funding deadline for public schools fast approaching, Senator Christine Rolfes warned the budget passed by Washington State Senate Republicans Thursday falls “far short” of the state’s responsibilities.

“This is a property tax plan masquerading as education reform,” said Rolfes, a Bainbridge Island Democrat at 23rd District lawmaker.

“Senate Republicans have passed a $5.6 billion property tax, deeply cut essential services that help poor kids and struggling families break the cycle of poverty, and yet deliver very little payoff for our state’s 1.1 million students,” she added.

The Senate Republican budget (Senate Bill 5048) cuts hundreds of millions of dollars from programs critical to breaking the cycle of poverty for Washingtonians left behind, even as the economy comes back from the recession, Rolfes noted.

The extensive overhaul of revenue collection under the Republican budget would actually cost school districts across the state $532 million over four years, compared to keeping levies at the current levy rate of 28 percent, according to estimates.

Rolfes, who serves as the lead Democrat on the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee as well as the assistant lead on the Senate budgetary Ways & Means Committee, offered and voted for a number of amendments to try and improve the budget before it passed.

One amendment would have redirected $21 million of savings from reforms to high stakes tests to improve Career and Technical Education programs.

“People across this state sent us here to amply fund public schools in a way that does not further burden middle and low-income families,” Rolfes added.

“I do appreciate my Republican colleagues putting something on the table and I look forward to getting to negotiations immediately. But this budget does not fulfill the task the students and families of Washington are counting on us to do,” she said Thursday. “They deserve much better than the budget passed tonight.”