The Legislature is putting this to the test.After three-and-a-half months, the Washington state legislature has a final proposal for dealing with its $2.8 billion deficit. There will be new taxes on beer, candy and cigarettes and the state is expecting the federal government to provide at least some money to keep health care afloat. But even with new tax dollars and help from the other Washington, legislators are left needing to cut $755 million out of the state budget. Today comes the (almost) final list of nine major cuts to close that gap. And the biggest chunk is coming out of education. Public schools are losing $118 million for K through 12 classes with another $73 million coming out of state-funded college and university budgets.”This will result in larger, overcrowded classes,” says Washington Education Association spokesperson Rich Wood. He notes that “we already endured horrible cuts in K-12, and higher education [last year].”Wood says the WEA was happy to see the legislature restore a few major education-related items from Governor Chris Gregoire’s initial all-cuts budget. Money for all-day kindergarten is back in as well as funding for small, poor districts that can’t raise money through levies as easily as Seattle can.But cash to keep class sizes small and give teachers a day without students for training or developing curriculum is gone. Wood says the WEA has assurances from the state that it will restore funding to get class sizes back down and improve teachers as the economy recovers and tax revenues increase. “But of course students that are in school now deserve to get the best possible education,” he adds.University of Washington state relations director Margaret Shepherd says legislators tend to treat higher ed like a “defacto rainy day fund.” While the state is required, by our Constitution, to give all kids a high school-level education, there is no such mandate for college. So when budgets get tight, she says, the universities often suffer.As to how UW will cope with losing its share of the $73 million–expected to be about $20 million–Shepherd says students can expect another tuition hike and all academic departments will likely take a 3 percent to 5 percent cut. The legislature still has to have a final vote on the budget, but with one day left in the special session, the consensus seems to be that little, if anything, will change.