School levies and Local Effort Assistance

An enrichment levy is a local property tax a district's voters approve to pay for things beyond basic education. After the McCleary decision, the Legislature narrowed what levy money may be spent on and capped how much may be collected, precisely so levies could not be used to fund the basic education the state is constitutionally required to pay for itself.

A levy is therefore an enrichment tool, and its size is limited twice over: by a rate limit of $2.50 per $1,000 of assessed value, and by a per-student cap.

A district's levy authority is the lesser of those two limits. The per-student cap is set by RCW 84.52.0531, as amended by ESHB 2049 (2025).

The two-tier split is temporary. Under the current schedule the cap becomes a flat $5,035 for every district in 2031, when the district-size distinction disappears.

75 districts have passed a levy larger than the cap allows them to collect, totalling about $107.8M. That is money voters have already approved. Releasing it would take a change to the cap, not a new election - past that point, collecting more would require a fresh vote.

The same tax rate raises far more money in a property-rich district than a property-poor one. Local Effort Assistance - often called levy equalization - measures that gap and pays the difference.

The state sets a per-student goal, then asks what each district's property could raise at a common rate of $1.50 per $1,000. Where that falls short of the goal, the state makes up the difference. This is a wealth test, not a measure of the district's actual levy.

LEA is prorated by local effort: a district levying below $1.50 receives only that fraction of what it qualifies for. That is what makes LEA a match rather than a grant.

See all four steps worked through with real district numbers →

The cap and LEA pull in opposite directions. The cap limits how far a wealthy district can outspend the state formula; LEA lifts districts that cannot reach it. Raising the cap without raising LEA widens the gap between property-rich and property-poor districts; raising LEA without raising the cap narrows it.

Both levers are in the Policy Simulator, where the statewide cost of each is calculated from the same levy data used on this page.

Statutes: RCW 84.52.0531 (levy cap) and RCW 28A.500.015 (LEA threshold and proration). Levy figures are OSPI's calendar-year 2027 pre-ballot worksheet; see Sources & Methodology.