The Senate just took up House Bill 2058, which makes about $480 million in fund transfers and cuts.

To kick off debate, Sen. Ed Murray said the state’s unemployment rate has just dropped to 8.7 percent, as reported by the Associated Press. “It’s not low enough, but it’s definitely movement,” he said. Murray said the budget is responsible because lawmakers took time to hear from people around the state. “We are making a significant down payment on the crisis we face,” he said, and it will allow lawmakers to move more quickly during regular session to work on a budget and a jobs package.

 ”I’m happy we’re getting something done,” said Sen. Joe Zarelli. “We’re making a good start on what is a huge problem … I just want to encourage all the members here today,” to vote for the bill, he said. He agreed with Murray that this early action gives the Legislature a jump start on regular session business.

Sen. Jim Hargrove thanked the budget writers, but said it’s too soon to start looking at revenue. He said there’s more work to be done on waste, fraud and abuse. He said over the next few weeks, he and others will be working on finding efficiencies where more cuts can be made.

The bill passed 42 to 6. It has already passed in the House.

Tags: Budget, cuts, Senate, special session

The House Ways and Means committee is getting ready to vote on the bill to make about $480 million in fund transfers and spending reductions.

Before the vote, Rep. Gary Alexander said he was disappointed that lawmakers weren’t doing more. He said the $1.4 billion problem needs to be addressed — and that lawmakers are missing some critical chances to make cuts now.

Rep. Ross Hunter, chairman of the committee, said it has been a difficult process, even for Gov. Chris Gregoire, who only had to worry about one vote — her own — for her proposal.

The bill passed out of committee 24-1 and the House could vote on it as early as this evening. Stay tuned.

Tags: Budget, cuts, House, special session

As promised by Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown last week, the legislature has released a list of cuts and fund transfers to consider during special session. The grand total? $479 million. The House and Senate drafts should be available online soon. I’ll be sifting through the cuts and transfers and posting more. In the meantime, here’s Brad Shannon and Jordan Schrader’s story.

TVW will cover both the House and Senate Ways and Means committees today at 3:30 p.m. You can watch them on the web right here.

Tags: Budget, cuts, revenue, special session

House and Senate budget writers are close to a compromise on several hundred million dollars in cuts, according to Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown. Brown held a press availability this morning.

She said that budget writers are neither ready to adopt Gov. Chris Gregoire’s full package of cuts to bridge the $2 billion spending gap in the budget nor to pass a tax package. But, she said, after hearing from hundreds of citizens on the proposed cuts and negotiating, she’s optimistic that a package of cuts will be announced on Monday.

Brown did not provide details on the cuts: She said she’d leave that to budget negotiators, including sens. Ed Murray and Joe Zarelli.

“We still have a long way to go after that’s over,” she said, referring to more than a billion more in cuts — and possibly a tax package — that would need to be handled during regular session, which starts in January.

Lawmakers are also planning to pass a resolution urging Congress to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would require internet retailers to collect sales tax on their sales. The bill could net the state $400 million in additional revenue if passed, Brown said.

Tags: Budget, Legislature, special session, taxes

This week’s Q&A is with Sen. Ed Murray, the Seattle Democrat who chairs the Senate budget writing committee. Murray talked about the budget hearing earlier this week, where lawmakers got a sense of the cuts agencies are proposing. We also talked about taxes, same-sex marriage and more. Next week, I’ll speak with a Republican budget writer about the impending cuts.

Q: Earlier this week, you heard some of the plans from state agencies for cutting 10 percent of their budgets. What are some of the elements that stood out the most?
Murray: Well, we have reached the point of — the cuts we’ve already made are fairly severe. But now we’re moving to the point of eliminating some pretty basic services that people depend on because they’re ill, because they’re disabled or because they’re old. So there are no sort of halfway measures left. This leaves only draconian choices.

Q: Are there any potential cuts you heard about that were particularly troubling?
Murray: You worry about some of the decisions we would make around the mentally ill. There are so many that stand out it’s hard just to pick one.
We’re looking at basic health care coverage, those sorts of things, assistance to immigrants, things like language interpreters for medical procedures. That pretty much cuts off the ability to someone to treat or someone who needs treatment.
Q: There has been talk about taxes. After what you heard earlier this week, are you convinced of the need of a revenue package?
Murray: I personally think we need to put revenue on the ballot and give voters a choice, but I don’t know if the votes are there in the Senate.

Q: Is that something you’re working on — getting support lined up for a potential package?
Murray: It certainly will be. To some extent, unless you’re actually in session it’s difficult to work some of these issues.

Q: At the hearing this week, you heard about the proposals to cut 10 percent — and yet, for many agencies, those cuts still don’t get you to $2 billion. How do you characterize the magnitude of this problem?
Murray: You know, it’s hard. When you ask voters, Should we have the services that state government provides like school, college, hep for families who have someone in their family who is disabled? They support it. (more…)

Tags: Budget, cuts, Sen. Ed Murray, special session, taxes

Gov. Chris Gregoire says she’s calling a special session to begin on Nov. 28. Why that date? “We need to get a budget done well before Christmas,” she said, but they also need the benefit of seeing the November revenue forecast.

“I have met with all four caucus leaders and all four budget leaders,” she said. She’s asking them all to work together. “Let’s do what we did last session so effectively,” she said, so in January, lawmakers can roll up their sleeves and try to find ways to spur job growth.

“Over the next week, I will provide our Legislature with the 10 percent reductions” requested from state agencies, she said. “However, let me be clear, not even that is enough to get us out of the hole,” she said.

“Our work will be brutal,” she said, but she’s not asking the Legislature to start from scratch: She’ll provide a “road map” with some proposed cuts. “Everything has to be on the table,” she said, including public schools, universities, social services and more. “We cannot take … a Pac-Man approach to the budget. We can’t just keep taking little bites out of one program, little bites out of one service,” she said. Instead, the state will have to admit there are some things it cannot do.

She said the $2 billion in cuts will come from $8.7 billion in areas where the state can actually make cuts. The remainder of the budget constitutes debt repayment and other mandatory spending. “Everything over which we have legal discretion … there will be those who disagree with us,” she said, and may file a lawsuit, but in her opinion the state can cut from social services, healthcare, education and corrections. “Those are the only places where there’s any real amount of money to get to $2 billion.”

She said she wants this done and finished before the next regular legislative session begins in January. “Let’s reserve the 2012 session to work on the policies that will help our economy,” she said.

What about taxes? “Premature. I won’t take anything off the table, I’ve asked them not to, so I won’t,” she said. “I’m not talking revenue now… I will take nothing off the table at this point.”

Why not start now? “We’re doing exactly what would be done if we came into legislative session in 2012. We’re doing it so we can get done in December,” she said. “I think they come in once all the work has been done,” she said, including committee meetings. “I think it helps them if I give them a start on it all, so that’s why I intend to give them a plan. They can disagree with it … I want them to begin the debate early,” she said.

Tags: Governor, special session

Today at 9:30 a.m., tune to TVW to watch Gov. Chris Gregoire hold a media availability on “next steps” in the budget. This comes a week after the state’s chief economic forecaster predicted the state will see about $1.4 billion less in revenue over the next two years.

Tune in today and read all about it right here.

Tags: Budget, economy, Governor, special session

Enjoy!

Tags: Budget, House, Hunter, sine die, special session

Members of the House and Senate are meeting right now — at 10 a.m. — to unveil their budget agreement. You can watch live on TVW or at TVW.org. Or read-along here.

Sen. Ed Murray began the press conference. “This process didn’t take a long time because of partisan disagreements … but how do you cut a budget. Cutting a budget means cutting schools, cutting healthcare,” he said, and the question was how to do that in a reasonably responsible way. “This was a good process,” he said.

Highlights of the budget: The budget cuts $4.6 billion — $200 million less than the Senate proposal, Murray said.

For K-12: “We lowered the K-12 salary reductions from the Senate position down to 1.9″ percent, said Rep. Ross Hunter. “In making some of the changes, we were able to shift some of the money around in high-poverty schools,” he said.

Murray: Higher education sees $600 million in reductions, based on the Senate budget formula. It includes the Senate tuition policy, too.

Hunter: On healthcare, he said they reduced the cut to low-income health clinics. “We do not freeze admission into the childrens’ health program,” he said, but the eligibility is lowered to 200 percent of poverty.

After the highlights, they turned the microphone over to other legislative leaders.

“I just want to give credit to the chair for being willing to stay committed to (bipartisan bargaining),” said Sen. Joe Zarelli. “In my 16 years I’ve never seen a process such as what we had here.” He said all four corners have worked together on this budget. “What it means ultimately is nobody gets their way in everything.”

Sen. Lisa Brown said Democrats decided at a retreat in December to work across the political divide. “We felt that we wanted to risk moving from a traditional approach to a bipartisan approach,” she said, because the risks of the traditional process were “too great.” She said she and other lawmakers learned a lot from the process.

Sen. Mike Hewitt: “A lot of people said that we couldn’t get this done,” he said, “but we did.” He said they’ve all been locked in rooms with the governor for hours at a time — and that means lawmakers will work better together in the future.

Rep. Gary Alexander: “The thing that’s important from my perspective is … I am very appreciative of the fact that we have been at the table,” he said. “In many cases, the final conference budget that’s come out, I’m reading it for the first time,” he said — so even being in the negotiations was a big step.

Rep. Pat Sullivan: “You see a lot of tired eyes up here,” he said, from all the late nights. He said he’s thankful for the “unbelievable” staff, who haven’t had a break since last year. “I think that they deserve a good vacation.”  He also thanked his Senate and House colleagues for the “extraordinary” process.

Rep. Ross Hunter: “It’s a daunting job to try to absorb … tens of billions of dollars of revenue and expenditure that have to balance,” he said. “In the end, the product that we have produced is a responsible approach, it’s a thoughtful approach,” he said. He said this is the most sustainable budget that the Legislature has produced in some time.

Now, for questions. (more…)

Tags: Budget, House, Senate, special session

Gov. Chris Gregoire just held a press conference to discuss the end of the regular legislative session and the timing of the special session. She was joined by the majority and minority leaders of the Senate and the House.

The governor said she will call lawmakers back in for a special session beginning Tuesday at 9 a.m., with the purpose of finding agreement on the two budgets (Operating and Capital) and passing the bills necessary to implement their plans.

“They have done it in a way that is responsive to the people of Washington,” said Gregoire. She said that in addition to the budget, they must act on workers’ compensation reform. “I congratulate them on the hard work they have invested thus far.”

“This legislature has come together and it has done so in the toughest of times,” said Gregoire.

Several of the proposals she made at the beginning of the session, she said, were met with bipartisan support and acted on immediately. For example, Gregoire said, lawmakers worked to get extend unemployment benefits, give injured workers better health care and pass the Launch Year Act.

The governor said the TransAlta bill showed the legislature’s commitment to the state’s environment and future.

She congratulated both the House and the Senate for passing the Transportation Budget earlier today.

Total bill count is down from the past, said Gregoire. By the end of the day she will have signed 161 bills. As tempting has it might have been,  the governor said, they did not start new programs that demanded funding.

(more…)

Tags: Governor, special session