Okanogan School District 105 v. Superintendent of Public Instruction for Washington

Since 1908 the federal government has paid states, such as Washington, twenty-five percent of all moneys received from national forests within their borders to be spent as the state legislature prescribes for the benefit of public schools and public roads of counties in which a national forest is situated. 16 U.S.C. § 500 . Washington distributes these funds to forest land counties, but has decided that forest land counties must disburse half of the money directly to school districts. The state then credits the amount of that disbursement toward the amount of state-mandated aid (called the basic education allocation, or BEA) that would otherwise be paid to the districts. Wash. Rev.Code § 28A.520.020.

Parents of children who attend the public schools in a forest land county and a number of school districts seek through this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to restrain the Washington Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Treasurer from reducing the districts’ BEA in this way. They seek an order requiring them instead to pay school districts in forest land counties their full allocation of forest funds and their full basic education allocation. The district court…