POULSBO — The North Kitsap School District may be coming into some money as a result of a recent ruling in King County Superior Court.

Just how soon that money will be available is anyone’s guess.

In a Feb. 4 decision, Judge John Erlick ruled that the Legislature is not fulfilling its duty to provide “ample” funding to educate the state’s children.

The plaintiffs in the case, which include the Network for Excellence in Washington Schools and a group of parents, claim the state is not fulfilling what the Washington Constitution calls the state’s “paramount duty,” to “make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders.”

In his ruling, Erlick directed the state Legislature to “determine the cost of amply providing for basic education” for all children in the state, and to provide the funding to make that education possible.

“The bottom line is this takes away all the excuses that the state has been using to be underfunding our public schools,” said Tom Ahearne, the lead prosecuting attorney in the case and a Bainbridge Island resident. “The state has said it’s just one of many important things we have to do and the ruling said it’s the thing you have to do first.”

Erlick did not set a timeline for lawmakers to make funding available.

Most school districts currently rely on property tax levies to fully fund basic education. The North Kitsap School District uses levy dollars to pay for about 20 percent of its budget. Much of that money goes toward basic needs such as teacher salaries, textbooks and student transportation.

Last year, the Legislature slashed education funding by about $1.8 billion to help close an $8.3 billion budget deficit for the 2009-11 biennium. But the House also passed a bill that will phase in more funding for education over the next eight years.

“The Legislature has not been simply waiting for results of this lawsuit to take action,” Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D—Bainbridge Island, said in a statement. “Last year HB 2261 recognized that the expanding demands on our students required an enhanced program of basic education and a new way to fund that program.”

State representative Christine Rolfes, D—Bainbridge Island, admitted that the state has not done what it should to amply fund education in recent years, but said the ruling will help legislators determine what their next move should be.

“It’s a pretty clear indication that we’re not living up to our constitutional responsibilities,” she said of the ruling. “The court case is helpful in guiding us on how we fund education.”

Rolfes added that she and many lawmakers hope to get through the current legislative session without making further cuts to education funding.

“What I’m hoping, as a legislator, is to be able to hold the line for now,” she said.

But with a $2.6 billion budget shortfall staring them in the face, lawmakers will have to make cuts somewhere. Rolfes believes that if those cuts do not come from education funding, they will likely come out of the health and human services budget.

“That’s the balancing act,” she said. “We’re right in the middle of the frying pan right now.”

Ahearne believes the state will appeal the decision so legislators can postpone making cuts to other areas of the budget, which might make constituents unhappy.

“If they delay, it gets them past the 2010 election and if they can delay it long enough, because appeals take a lot of time, they might be able to get past the 2012 session … which pretty much saves their bottoms for the 2012 election,” Ahearne said.

Rolfes and about 30 other representatives, including Sherry Appleton, D—Poulsbo, signed a letter to Gov. Chris Gregoire and Attorney General Rob McKenna asking the state not to appeal the case any further. In the letter, the legislators wrote:

“The court did not tell us anything that we do not already know. The Legislature is not giving schools the money they need to provide the quality of education we want. The court has rather bluntly reminded us that we are required under our state’s constitution to make the education of our children our number one priority.”

Local school district officials hope legislators are serious about providing better funding for education. Despite the overwhelming support for this Tuesday’s school levy, administrators say they do not like having to rely on levy dollars to fund basic programs.

“At least we may have opened the door to full funding by the state, as the constitution requires,” North Kitsap School Board President Tom Anderson said. “We spend a lot of time, energy and money on getting levies passed every two to four years, and that’s really a waste of resources.”

Anderson added that a levy-free format is possible, if the legislature is willing to make the effort to devise such a system.

“Right now the ball is in their court,” he said.

Bainbridge Island Review staff writer Victoria Nguyen contributed to this report.