With just twelve days remaining in the session, much of the year’s committee work is done. But there is still much work to do before we can head back home.
At the top of that list is agreeing on a two-year operating budget. As I reported last week, Governor Inslee and the Senate both released their proposals for the state’s operating budget recently. The House rolled out our plan on Friday evening – I will give you some highlights below.
Now it is up to the budget writers from the House and Senate to negotiate a final budget that both chambers can agree on. Also still on the agenda are a transportation budget and a capital construction budget.
House budget proposal
The House budget proposal is a responsible budget with solutions that fund our state’s priorities:
– Fully-funds K-12 education.
– Expands healthcare to over 280,000 more people, saving $265 million.
– Protects care for vulnerable seniors, the disabled, and at-risk kids.
– Promotes jobs and economic opportunity.
It sets the high-water mark for education spending, adding $1.3 billion over predicted spending on public schools. If you compared total education spending to the current budget, the House proposal spends $1.9 billion more than the status quo.
In contrast, Gov. Jay Inslee proposed putting $1.2 billion more toward education, while Senate Republican budget writers put forth a budget that adds only $760 million to meet our McCleary obligations.
Our plan also:
– Invests in early learning
– Reduces class sizes in K-3
– Puts more money into high-demand college degrees
– Expands health care and protects the safety net
– Offers affordable health coverage to 280,000 more people by expanding Medicaid
– Helps small business with costs by implementing the health care exchange, giving business owners and employees affordable and portable options for health coverage
You can get many more details about the proposal here and here.
Tax reform and tax fairness
Every two years, our budget writers carefully decide where to spend taxpayer dollars, but only recently have they begun looking at the other side of the equation – tax exemptions. Now, though, a citizens’ commission, the state’s expert audit and review committee, and the House Finance Committee are all reviewing the 640 tax exemptions, breaks, and loopholes in our state’s tax code.
It’s estimated these exemptions cost about $24 billion each biennium. Many of them have been on the books, unexamined, since the 1930s. Lawmakers want to know, do they still make sense? Do they actually create the jobs they were intended to?
And, most importantly, are they more critical to our state than making sure our kids get the education we want them to have?
Based on the answers to some of those questions, the House has proposed a series of reforms that will shift tax dollars from unneeded exemptions to funding education – our paramount duty.
The $1.3 billion in reforms and revenue in our budget proposal match the $1.3 billion new investment in education we propose in our budget.
Funding mental health services that are critical to public safety
Our budget proposal also funds recently-approved legislation that helps to ensure the mentally ill get the care they need and make Washington a safer place:
House Bill 1114: fills the gap between the criminal justice system and mental health care providers. It ensures that violent mental health offenders get the treatment they need, instead of ending up on the streets.
House Bill 1336: requires school counselors and nurses to receive training on suicide prevention – giving these professionals the tools to identify early warning signs of troubled youth and prevent tragedies.
House Bill 1777: accelerates the implementation of critical involuntary commitment of people with pressing mental health issues. The new approach will take input from family members and friends into consideration when making a decision to involuntarily commit. We pay for this change two years ahead of schedule.
House Bill 1522: builds a bridge between hospitals and the community for the mentally ill. It creates a step down from state hospitals – which will provide an important service to folks beginning to transition back into day-to-day life. This isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s the cost-effective approach.
House Bill 1627: gives county jails the tools they need to meet the growing demand for competency evaluations. Our county jails aren’t mental health care providers and, without adequate care, the mentally ill deteriorate rapidly in jail.
We’ve seen the tragedies that can occur when the mentally ill don’t get treatment they need. I believe mental health care is a critical investment – it’s just one of many priorities I will be fighting for in coming weeks.
Capitol Ideas – a behind-the-scenes peek at your Legislature
You’ve probably visited the House Democrats’ website and I hope you make a habit of checking out our blog, The Advance, on a daily basis as well. But unless you’ve dug a little deeper, you might not have discovered one of the most informative and entertaining features we offer.
I highly recommend you give a listen to the Capitol Ideas podcast. There’s no hard and fast schedule, but from time to time one of our staff members sits with this or that House Democrat, to give listeners an inside look at important aspects of how their citizen Legislature works together for one Washington. It’s specifically designed to not be especially political or partisan in nature; it’s really more of a behind-the-scenes look at how our form of representative democracy works, how people perform different jobs in the House, and how my colleagues and I go about our daily duties as your representatives – from writing bills to serving on or chairing committees, to being in the caucus’ leadership team.
If you’re not familiar with podcasting, don’t let the name throw you. You don’t need an iPod or an .mp3 player or even a smartphone to listen, although you can do so with any of these. All you need to do is click the link above and you’ll see a list of more than two dozen Capitol Ideas interviews. When you see one that sounds interesting, click on the title and it’ll automatically begin playing on most any computer.
And for those of you who are confirmed podcast fans, Capitol Ideas is also available on iTunes. Just click on this link and you’ll have easy access to the whole series.
As always, I welcome your thoughts, suggestions, and ideas, so stay in touch!
Until next time,
