WASHINGTON STATE

Washington State House Democrats

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Rep. Mike Sells Jan 13/2012 e-memo

January 13, 2012
Message from Rep. Mike Sells

2012 Legislative Session Begins

The 2012 session of the Washington State Legislature began Monday much the way the last session ended: with legislators focused on the economic challenges facing our state.  Although we dealt with about 1/3 of the projected budget shortfall in December, we still have a lot of work to do before we adjourn again. Members of the budget teams in both the House and Senate continued work over the holidays and will be presenting their proposals soon.

Many of you have contacted my office about the budget and the potential cuts to services or plans to increase revenues.  I appreciate all your input and will keep you updated on these issues in the weeks ahead.

The budget is the main thing, but not the only thing, legislators will be addressing this session.  House Speaker Frank Chopp laid out five other goals for us in his opening day speech:

  1. Create jobs now – the best way to improve our economy is to get our people back to work.
  2. Fund basic education – even in tough times, we need to fund our public schools.
  3. Save the safety net – our budget is more than just a spreadsheet; it’s a statement of our values. We can’t turn our backs on our neighbors in need.
  4. Ensure equality – the principle of equality made this a great nation and still inspires people all over the world. Everyone wants a fair shake.
  5. Provide opportunity – our young people deserve a chance to go to college or get the job training they need to claim their dreams.

These goals will be challenging to achieve.  The budget will dominate the session. However we can’t focus so much on the problems of the present that we lose sight of the future.

 

Meeting Economic Challenges

During this week’s House Labor and Workforce Development Committee that I chair the issue of the need to keep working on jobs was underscored by the most recent unemployment report summarized below:

Update from Employment Security Department on unemployment benefit extensions

  • There were 441,000 claims in 2011 (down from 503,000 in 2010)
  • $3.2 billion in benefits were paid in 2011 ($1.5 billion from state trust fund; $1.7 billion from federal funds)
  • Unless the federal government extends UI again the projected last payable week for extended benefits (federal $) is in late March
  • Currently over 70,000 Washington citizens have exhausted their benefits and without extension an additional 100,000 citizens will lose their benefits by mid-July 2012

Clearly things are slowly moving in the right direction, but there is a lot more to do to dig us out of a recession that has been the deepest since the Great Depression. In our construction industry, unemployment still runs between 20% and 60%. Look for the legislature to address it through Capital Budget recommendations and enhancement of workforce education initiatives.

The Labor and Workforce Development Committee also will be looking at how we help our Community Colleges meet the increasing demand for workers, particularly in Aerospace. We’re lucky to have a great Machinists Apprenticeship program at Everett Community College, and the Washington Aerospace Research and Training Center at Paine Field administered by Edmonds Community College. I was proud to sponsor the legislation to get the training center going, but we’re going to have to pump it up to help people to be able to attend those programs. Already, we have opened student loan programs to the training center at Paine, and are working on doing that for Renton Voc Tech. When it comes to success for the aerospace sector, we’re all in this together in this state. Training and education will be key to maintaining a competitive edge and making sure our citizens get the family wage jobs they need.

 

New prescription drug program will save lives in our state

 

The number of people dying due to prescription drug overdoses in our state has grown dramatically: from 2003 to 2008 the state death rate increased 90 percent. In fact, currently, more people die from unintentional drug overdoses than in car accidents.
To crack down on this statewide overdose problem, in 2007 the Legislature passed a bill that created the Washington State Prescription Monitoring Program (WA PMP), which was rolled out on October 7, 2011.
The state has since been collecting, and storing in a database, information regarding purchases of pain meds and other controlled substances (Schedule II, III, IV and V). So far the most dispensed drug—at 44 million pills to fill more than 800,000 prescriptions—was Hydrocodone / Acetaminophen (Vicodin). That’s a lot of pills and it makes sense to know where they’re going and how they’re used so that they are not misused or abused.
The WA PMP promotes public health and safety and helps improve patient care because physicians and pharmacists will be able to use the database to identify dangerous drug interactions, recognize undermanaged pain or see the need for substance-abuse treatment.
With the WA PMP, Washington joins 47 other states that have laws authorizing monitoring programs.
To learn more visit the program’s website here.

Keeping tabs on your Legislature

I appreciate hearing from you throughout the session, and I want to help you stay up-to-date on budget and other discussions. We’ll do our best to keep you informed on with this e-memo, but there are several other ways to stay connected with us: