Tune into TVW now to watch the Quality Education Council. This is the group that is tasked with studying public education in the state and coming up with ways it can be improved.

So far, they’ve discussed new teacher mentor programs and graduation requirements may be on the horizon. Stay tuned.

And don’t forget that later this week is Assembly Days, when lawmakers will return to Olympia for a pre-session set of hearings.

Tags: education, Legislature, QEC

This is a pretty amazing visual demonstration of the national unemployment rate over the past two years.

The good news? Jobless claims fell nationwide last month.

Tags: unemployment

Gov. Chris Gregoire’s and her budget director Victor Moore posted this video about the budget.

First, Gregoire and Moore give a brief overview of cuts made last year. Then, Gregoire explains that there are $2.6 billion more in cuts necessary — but the cuts can’t be made from 70 percent of the budget, which are protected areas (like school funding) or federal pass-through money designated for specific programs.

“What is in that 30 percent we can cut? It’s programs, like public safety … financial aid, mental health services. It’s care for seniors … if we cut their programs, what do they do? The answer is, they go homeless. Those are not good options,” she said.

“Our budget is due in December and by law as Governor, I must present a balanced budget within existing state revenues. I want to be clear: We face extremely difficult choices in the short term … but I’m optimistic for our long-term goals,” she said, adding that the state has been ranked in the top five states to lead the nation out of recession.

“I’m asking for your help. Thank you,” was her sign-off.

Tags: Budget, Gregoire, taxes

Tags: math and science requirements, policy, public schools, randy dorn

For this week’s Q&A, I sat down separately with Rep. Ross Hunter (D) and Rep. Ed Orcutt (R) to talk to them about this morning’s revenue forecast, in which it was revealed that the Legislature will have to cut — or otherwise come up with — $2.6 billion in the short Legislative session.

Below is the full text of both interviews, in which each was asked the same questions. I’ve posted the interviews in the order in which they were conducted, with Rep. Hunter first. Enjoy.
Q: Can you put $2.6 billion figure into perspective?

Hunter: Every year, we do a budget. We do a big budget every two years that lasts for the next two years. And then we make corrections on the second year.

This time, something really big happened last session: We had a precipitous drop in revenues. If you do a trend line of the amount of revenue that we’ve taken in over the last couple of decades, the state grows at about 4.7 percent per year. So that means if you had projected that out, just straight line growth, if state revenues came in consistently from year to year and didn’t have wild swings, we’d grow about 4 to 5 percent a year.
That didn’t happen last year. Last year, the amount of money that came in fell. It almost never falls in actual dollars.
The cost of providing exactly the same set of services from year to year is what we start our budget from.  That’s what’s called the current law budget. We looked at that number and the amount of revenue we thought we were going to have. Only now, instead of about a $35 billion budget for these two years, it’s going to be $9 billion less. We lopped off 25 percent of our budget in a two-year cycle.
Some of that is we projected state employees are going to get a raise, we didn’t do that. We’re not going to do it this year.
So, we project how many people will wind up in prison, how many will need unemployment insurance, how many will be eligible for Medicaid? All of the people who are eligible for those services went up. There are more poor people, and they need more services from the state.

So you combine all those things together and (we have of difference of) $9 billion. About a third was help from federal government. And about $3 billion was cut.

This year, we will have to cut $2.6 billion out of the budget in the second year of the two-year budget. Instead of cutting 3 billion in a two year period, we wind up cutting $2.6 billion in a one-year period.
If you assume that we’re even remotely rational, we cut the programs that were less effective last year. So that everything we get into now is better stuff. We’re getting down to the real basics. We look at our education system: The voters approved by overwhelming margins funding for Initiative 728 to reduce class sizes. (more…)

Tags: Budget, Q&A, revenue, taxes

Don’t miss Inside Olympia tonight at 7 and 10. Host Austin Jenkins interviewed Sens. Rodney Tom and Joe Zarelli. Here’s a sneak peak:

When asked about taxes, Tom said sales, business and occupation and property tax increases are off the table, from his understanding. But he expects the Legislature will close some tax loopholes.

When talking about reforming government, Senators Tom and Zarelli discussed the Basic Health Plan. Zarelli said that “close to a majority” of people on BHP aren’t in the state legally. Tom, however, said “I think that number is wrong.”

Sen. Rodney Tom, speaking to reporters after the revenue forecast (which you can read about below), said he think the state will “be making cuts that we never dreamed of and considering revenue packages that we never dreamed of.”

He said the $2.6 billion can’t be made up easily through cuts — particularly since this is a supplemental budget year.

“The stock market is always a leading indicator by about a year. Stocks are up significantly,” he said. “We need to make sure that when we’re looking at the decisions both on the revenue side and the cuts side, that we’re taking a long-term view … too often we get in the expediency of the day.”

Rep. Ross Hunter: “Unlike the federal government … we don’t get to print money,” he said the state also can’t carry a deficit. “I’m concerned about the impact in consumer confidence … but we will balance the budget … because we have to.”

Hunter said consumer confidence is more affected by national news than local actions.

Sen. Tom said most other states have similar revenue problems, regardless of whether they’re Democratic or Republican controlled. “All of us need to work across the aisle,” he said.

Tags: Revenue forecast, taxes

As said in an earlier blog post, the Revenue Forecast is required to do three forecasts: An actual, pessimistic and optimistic.

Raha puts odds on each forecast turning out to be right. In past forecasts, the odds on the pessimistic forecast have been as high as 25 percent. This time, it’s lower: 10 percent.

But: “There is a possibility that this … will turn out to be not enough,” he said. Meaning: There’s a chance the pessimistic forecast could turn out to be right. A 10 percent chance, but a chance nonetheless.

Tags: Revenue forecast

Since the state relies on sales tax, consumer confidence is key to the state’s recovery.

So  … when will consumers get a bit more confident?

Raha, the state’s chief economic forecaster, said it will happen when unemployment starts dropping. He thinks that will be sometime in the third quarter of 2010.

Tags: Revenue forecast, taxes

Rep. Ross Hunter was asked about revenue raising measures.

“The House is going to obviously look at this. We’re going to do what we do every year, which is balance the budget … it does look to be very painful this year,” he said. He said it’s important to balance the impact of all the choices.

As for putting a tax measure on the ballot, he said it would only have an impact on the last six months of the biennium. If something is passed during the legislative session, it would have 15 months. Translation: If taxes are to be increased, it would likely be done by the Legislature, according to Hunter.

Sen. Joe Zarelli said this is a difficult situation and that it’s “very hard” for the majority party to put this budget together. “We’ve got to, I think, surgically take a look at the delivery models we have in many different programs,” he said. Whether it’s General Assistance Unemployable or voicemail, “we’ve got to look at whether there’s a better way, more efficient process.”

“The sooner we act, the better off we will be. I remind you all that, as of January, we have 18 months left in the biennium,” Zarelli said. Referring to the “bow wave” of budgeting, he said cuts made sooner will save the state more money — which means fewer cuts in the long run.

Tags: Revenue forecast, taxes