Today:

- Here’s today’s full committee schedule and today’s TV schedule. The focus today is on Ways and Means committees and Finance — today is their cutoff, so they’ll need to vote out anything they want to keep alive — and the floor sessions.

- Today, 165 school districts will ask voters for $4.65 billion in property tax increases through 2014 for school maintenance and operation. There are also 11 bonds, 32 capital project levies and 4 transportation fund levies. Washington lawmakers are watching the vote closely.

- Stay tuned for more.

Tags: Day 30 preview, taxes

Can you believe it’s day 29?

- The House Ways & Means Committee considered abolishing DSHS and turning it into four separate agencies.

- The Senate Ways & Means Committee considered allowing WSU, UW and Western to set their own tuition, with some limits.

- They also considered the bill to get the state closer to qualifying for federal Race to the Top money.

- And passed a bill to make it easier to raise taxes.

- Gov. Chris Gregoire announced that she wants to make it easier for community banks to loan money to small businesses, helping to pull our economy out of the recession.

And a couple of things from Friday:

- A lot of bills “died” at policy cutoff on Friday. Here’s the Senate’s list.

- Arun Raha said the state’s economy is headed in the right direction. Don’t forget that the caseload forecast is on Wednesday and the Economic and Revenue Forecast is on Friday!

Tags: Day 29

Tags: banks, economy, Gregoire

The bill to make it easier to raise taxes by modifying Initiative 960 is now up for vote in the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Watch live on TVW.

The bill suspends and amends 960:  It suspends the two-thirds vote requirement to raise revenue for two legislative sessions and it amends by allowing the Legislature to transfer revenue between accounts, amend the law following a revenue-related court case or end exemptions with a simple majority vote.

Here’s the bill.

Update 1: Sen. Joe Zarelli put forth an amendment to allow the tax increase this year only, but Sen. Rodney Tom asked members to vote against it, saying there are more revenue forecasts before this biennium is over, and the Legislature needs to be able to be flexible. The amendment failed 13 to 8.

Update 2:  Sen. Joe Zarelli put forth another amendment that only tax exemptions recommended by the Tax Preference Commission could be axed without hitting the two-thirds vote requirement. Sen. Phil Rockefeller said few of the state’s hundreds of tax exemptions have been reviewed by the commission — and the Legislature shouldn’t have to wait for them to end exemptions. The amendment failed 13 to 8.

Update 3: Sen. Zarelli’s third amendment would require a nexus between a fee and the fund it would be transferred into by the Legislature. Example: They couldn’t take a tire fee and transfer it into the schools fund without a two-thirds vote. Sen. Rodney Tom said excess funds should be used right now for the state’s needs. The amendment failed 13 to 8.

Update 4: Sen. Zarelli’s fourth amendment would allow a simple majority to raise taxes, but would put it to a public vote. Sen. Rodney Tom said it would cost money and set up a false expectation for voters, who “send us down here to look at the big picture.” The amendment failed 14 to 7.

Update 5: After turning down all the amendments, the committee voted without discussion. It passed out of Ways and Means and now heads to the Rules Committee.

Tags: Initiative 960, taxes

The Senate Ways & Means Committee just started hearing its second bill of 27 for the day: Reforming education in order to qualify for Race to the Top funding.

“This legislation strengthens our K-12 system by moving Washington state forward,” Anne Randal with WEA said. She said Race to the Top funds could cover the fiscal note — meaning less cost to the state.

“We support 6696, but we have two concerns,” George Scarola with the League of Education Voters said. He said some have suggested that making policy changes due to one-time federal funding isn’t worth it. But: “Today’s assurances for the grants are going to be tomorrow’s requirements for Title 1, school improvement funds and No Child Left Behind,” he said.

Tags: education reform

The Senate Ways & Means Committee is live on TVW now. They’re discussing the bill to allow the UW, WSU and Western to set their own tuition, so long as it didn’t exceed 14 percent in any one year or 9 percent compounded over 15 years.

Tune in now or check back here for updates on the testimony.

Under the proposal, Guaranteed Education Tuition credits would increase in cost, meaning fewer people would buy them, according to the state actuary.

Mark Emmert, president of UW, is now speaking. He said the schools are trying to figure out the best, most efficient and most fair way to charge tuition. “Overall (this is) a bill that we find supportive,” he said, though there are areas they would like to “discuss further.”

“We think it provides the appropriate limits” for setting tuition, said Elson Floyd, president of WSU. He kept his comments brief.

Charlie Earl, director of the board of community and technical colleges, said they support the bill. Why? Universities have to be affordable and accessible in order for students from community and technical colleges to be able to transfer in. “Robust financial aid needs to be continued … and (that is ) necessary to make this tuition proposal work well.”

Sam Shaddox, a student lobbyist:  “Anytime we have a supposed ceiling on tuition increases,” he said, it eventually becomes “the basement.” He said WSU and WSA — the Washington Student Association — are against the bill.

Peter Sterr, a student lobbyist with WSU Vancouver, said the 9 percent tuition cap over 15 years could double tuition within the decade. He said the increase is so far above inflation, it will quickly leave middle-class students in the dust.

That hearing is now over. Sen. Margarita Prentice noted that it took 55 minutes — and it’s one of 27 bills on their public hearing schedule today. Up now: Education reform.

Tags: tuition

Right now in the House (and live on TVW) is a bill to abolish DSHS — the largest state agency. The bill passed out of House Health and Human Services last week, and now is in Ways & Means. DSHS would be disbanded and separated into four different agencies under the bill. I’ll update here as the hearing continues.

Here’s some public testimony from last week.

Rep. Ruth Kagi asked Chris Blake, committee staff, what the cost would be. The answer: No one knows right now. “There would be some savings from eliminating the current administrative structure, but there would be some additional costs” to four different administrative structures.

“I consider this bill to be kind of a study bill with teeth,” said Rep. Mike Armstrong, the sponsor. “Since this is a fiscal committee, I’m not even going to bring up the 16 children per year that die” while under the supervision of DSHS. “How do you quantify what you can save financially when looking at the death of 16 children?”

“Where do the savings come from? Right now, DSHS has over 19,000 employees and operate a total budget of $20 billion,” he said — $10 billion from the state, $10 billion from the federal government. He said the savings comes in cutting layers of management. He cited the Department of Health as an example — the Legislature carved it out of DSHS and it’s doing just fine.

Kari Burrell with Gov. Chris Gregoire’s office, said Gov. Gregoire shares the goals outlined in the intent section of the bill. But: Gregoire has introduced bills of her own to reform and streamline DSHS and  “this bill proposes going in the opposite direction,” she said.

And now Susan Dreyfus, Secretary of DSHS. “We are in unprecedented times. And to pass this bill would decrease productivity,” she said, and derail the department. “This bill will not get you better results.” “I know that you have many frustrations with the child welfare system in this state … I really need to share with you that what I am finding in the review of the state system here is that we simply are not focused … on quality, consistency and accountability.”

Public hearing is now closed on that bill. Dreyfus and Burrell were the only two to testify.

Tags: abolishing DSHS, DSHS

“Events have pretty much unfolded along the lines we expected in November… the economy is now at a point where it will start adding jobs again,” Dr. Arun Raha, chief economic forecaster, said — after his customary opening joke.

Raha said we’ll see economic growth in 2013. He said the strength of community banks is “a worry.”

“The average workweek, overtime hours and hourly wages all increased,” he said — all positive. “This is the first time since this recession began that revenues have come in above target. We anticipate a cumulative positive variance of $45 to $50 million through the Feb. 10 collection period.”

Watch below. And don’t forget this Friday is the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council live on TVW. That’s when Raha will combine the figures from the economic review with the caseload forecast and other indicators to come up with a forecast. Read all about how he does the forecast here.

Tags: economic review

Here’s a list of bills that died in the Senate, according to the Senate. I’ll update with the House information if it’s available.

A skimming: No Leif Erickson Day. No bills for mute swans. No commission to restructure state government. No tuition setting authority for UW. No ban on the sale of assault rifles.

A note: The policy cut-off was last week, so any bills that aren’t “necessary to implement the budget” are done for. The fiscal bill cut-off is tomorrow.

Update: The House does not produce a list of dead bills, a spokesman said. However, they will produce a list of bills that are still alive after the fiscal cut-off. Look for that list this week.

Here are the dead bills:
SB 6335
SB 6372
SB 6249
SB 6705
SB 6589
SB 6599
SB 6458
SB 6477
SB 6659
SB 6682
SB 6694
SB 5922
SB 6767
SB 5861 Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: dead bills

A short preview of next week: Here’s the schedule.  As you can see, there are a lot of blank agendas. And, since today was the policy cutoff — all non-budget bills coming from the Senate and the House must have cleared their committees by the end of the day — floor action and budget committees will be in the spotlight next week.

- On Monday at 1:15 p.m., executive session on the bill to allow you to get out of a traffic camera ticket and limit the amount you can be charged.

- Gov. Chris Gregoire is holding a press conference on Monday at 10 a.m. to “discuss her continued efforts to spur job creation in Washington state.” She’ll be joined by community bank leaders.

- Thursday at 8 a.m, the House Agriculture Committee will consider ideas to streamline natural resources. Public input is welcome.

- The rest of the week, we’ll show daily floor sessions and live committee hearings throughout the day.

Tags: week 5