Washington state has severe funding needs with respect to public education. That includes not only kindergarten through high school, but also the colleges and universities, which will greet the largest class of high school graduates in history in a couple of years, plus a preschool structure that must make sure all kids — including the neediest — reach kindergarten ready to learn.

The state owes that much to its children and to its economy. In Spokane, for example, development of a university district, coupled with the community’s health-care industry, is the fount of economic aspirations.

The state funding need is a legacy from years of inadequate attention by the Legislature.

On Nov. 2, state voters will make a decision: pass Initiative 884 and take lawmakers off the hook, or play the stern disciplinarian and send the problem back to them.

I-884, a one-cent increase in the state sales tax, would raise $1 billion a year for education needs from preschool to higher education.

We understand the reasons, but I-884 poses problems that offset its advantages.

•It makes a regressive tax structure even more so. The sales tax has a disproportionate impact on low-income citizens who spend a larger percentage of their discretionary income on taxable necessities.

•In Spokane, where the combined state-local sales tax is already 8.4 percent, the assessment would be nearly a dime on the dollar. Across the state line, Kootenai County is about to lower its sales tax to half that, inviting consumers of big-ticket items like appliances to bypass local merchants.

•While the revenue from the increase would be dedicated to the specified purposes, lawmakers could change that at any time by a two-thirds vote (that’s how they suspended two voter-approved initiatives to increase teacher pay and lower class size) and, after two years, by a simple majority vote.

In a court case nearly 30 years ago, Judge Robert Doran ordered the state to meet its constitutional responsibility to provide amply for basic education — the K-12 system that stands to receive half the revenues from I-884. It’s questionable if the lawmakers ever fully complied, but no one can seriously argue that they are doing so today.

If they were, schools would be fully funded and ballot proposals like I-884 would be used for funding lower-priority programs.

Citizens already supplement what the state appropriates for education. Homeowners and businesses do it by approving special operating levies. Parents and neighbors do it by generously supporting school fund-raisers. Teachers do it by reaching into their own pockets to provide classroom needs beyond what their modest supply allotments cover.

I-884 asks them to do still more. The need is real, but the request is addressed to the wrong party. It should go to the Legislature, not the voters.

It will be painful if this essential schooling need has to wait longer to be met, but it would be irresponsible to keep excusing the Legislature’s neglect.