WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Reps. Roberts and Liias’ Legislative Update for June 24, 2013

Dear neighbors,

The Legislature reconvened in Olympia yesterday, Sunday June 23rd. The plan is that we will keep working through the week until our tasks are complete.

State budget writers are inching closer to an agreement that we hope will be presented to legislators for approval before the end of this week. Time is of the essence – the fiscal year ends June 30.

House Democrats are fighting for a budget that takes a positive step toward funding education without cutting programs for seniors, kids, and people with disabilities.

The negotiators received two shots of good news this week:

  • The Economic and Revenue Forecast Council reported they expect $231 million more in revenue over the next two years than had been previously projected.
  • The Caseload Forecast Council, which keeps track of how many kids are in our schools, inmates are in our prisons, seniors are in nursing homes, etc., is projecting a savings of $90 million for the next biennium.

This welcome news is tempered by the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision, which ordered the legislature to increase spending on K-12 education by at least $4.5 billion by 2018.

We must also keep in mind how much has been cut from state spending in recent years. About $12 billion was eliminated from a wide variety of state services including parks, environmental clean-up, senior day care, teachers’ salaries, etc.

While these positive forecasts bring us closer to a “go-home” budget for the rapidly approaching new biennium (July 2013 through June 2015), we can’t pretend we’ve solved the long-term problem of adequately funding K-12 education. There is still much work to be done in the coming years to meet our constitutional and moral obligations.


More good news on the economic front

Last Wednesday the Employment Security Department reported that Washington State’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.8 percent last month while the state added an estimated 4,100 jobs.

The May jobless rate was down from April’s rate of 7 percent; well below the national unemployment rate of 7.6 percent.

Economists say that our unemployment rate is now the lowest since November 2008 when the rate was 6.5 percent. Click on the chart below to go to the report:

mayunemployment rate

However, more than 119,000 Washingtonians claimed unemployment benefits last week, so there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

That’s why we are supporting the House version of a capital budget and a transportation package, which invest in roads, bridges, schools, water projects, and other public infrastructure that are good for our businesses and create numerous jobs throughout the state.


Thank you for taking the time to read this update. Please feel free to contact us with your feedback and ideas.