The news of the Island’s successful fundraising to support the school district was awesome news in the July 7 Beachcomber.

It is great to live in a community that values education so highly. I always have supported education and continue to believe teaching remains one of the most underpaid professions. This is especially so since my son, a VHS grad, will be finishing the Masters-in-Teaching program at the University of Washington next year. I can only hope he is hired by a school district which is supported by its community as much as it is on Vashon.

It is unfortunate that even with operating levies, the Legislature continues to underfund education, despite the constitutional mandate to do otherwise.

Deep into The Beachcomber article I found an interesting connection to a feature article in The Beachcomber by State Representative Joe McDermott a few weeks ago and County Executive Dow Constantine’s pleas a few months ago. Along with our own Vashon Island School District superintendent, Michael Soltman, all were dealing with budgets that would require the laying off of “essential” personnel, including those in fire, sheriff and teaching, unless additional funds were found. The solution at the state and county levels was increased taxes, with Vashon “self-taxing” itself.

While all three claimed that “everything” that could be cut, had been cut, The Beachcomber article revealed a major source of revenue that had been ignored. As superintendent Soltman states, a “large portion” of this year’s $900,000 budget increase was “employee-related costs like step increases – where teachers are paid more for each year of employment – and benefit cost increases.”

So, exactly how much of this budget’s $500,000 shortfall truly was unavoidable is unknown. At the same time, similar raises have continued to be paid at both the county and state level, while “essential” personnel are threaten with layoff.

As I stated earlier, I believe teachers are underpaid, as may be the case for other government employees. If the money is there, they should get raises. However, increasing taxes or having Island-wide fundraisers to increase wages makes no sense.

I know of many good companies were none of the employees received raises last year, while benefits have been reduced, and of good managers who have not had increases for two years or more.

And yet, I have not heard any of our political leaders from the governor down to the local superintendent go to the union members and say, if you take your raises, fellow union members will lose their jobs and all your neighbors will suffer. Nor have I heard anyone call for a special session to reopen the existing contracts to correct this terrible mistake.

At the very, very least, all future contracts must have raises tied to revenues. Insufficient revenues mean no raises, and even reduced benefits. It should be the same fate for new programs, which should be eliminated if the projected ongoing revenues do not materialize.

These are difficult times, which hopefully we will never face again. However, if we do, no public employee — whether sheriff, teacher or janitor — should ever have to lose his or her job just so others can receive raises. When this common sense approach has been followed, then we can truly trust our leaders when they ask for new revenues because they truly will have done “everything” they could.

— Scott Harvey is a longtime Islander and close follower of school board issues.