Dear Neighbors,
I want to remind you about the Town Hall meeting for the 47th district tomorrow. Please drop by and share your thoughts with Senator Joe Fain, Representative Mark Hargrove and me about the legislative session so far. All residents are of the 47th district are welcome to attend – we’d love to hear from you! Details are as follows:
Date: Saturday, February 18th, 2012
Time: 11 AM – 12 PM
Location: Cutters Point Coffee
Address: 16739 SE 272nd Street, Covington, WA 98042
Mid-Session Legislative Update
On Tuesday, the legislature reached a critical cutoff date known as the “House of Origin Cutoff.” This day is the last day that all bills that are not related to the budget can be passed from its chamber of origin to the opposite chamber – House to Senate, and vice-versa.
In the House, we passed priority legislation to both improve government and protect and strengthen the health and public safety of our communities, which is crucial at a time when many vital services face significant reductions. Here is a sampling of what the bills that successfully reached the Senate would do:
- Impose stringent penalties to combat sex trafficking
- Prevent court distribution of child pornography evidence
- Crack down on drunk driving
- Improve the state’s foster care system
- Update environmental protections
- Implement education reforms to enhance student outcomes and performance
- Consolidate more areas of state government in order to improve efficiency and further cut costs.
Budget Progress and Jobs Now
Undoubtedly, the biggest focus of the 2012 legislative session has been resolving the $1.6 billion budget deficit. As a member of the House Ways and Means committee, I have been working with my colleagues to develop a budget proposal that will fulfill the constitutional mandate to adequately fund K-12 education and preserve as much of the safety net as possible while also achieving cost efficiencies in government operations.
We have received two bits of good budget news in the last week. The Economic and Revenue Forecast Council met Thursday and adopted a revised forecast for the current biennium and the first forecast for the 2013-15 biennium.
In the current biennium, revenues are expected to grow by about $46 million. The forecast shows an increase of about $96 million, but $50 million was part of the budget proposal adopted in December 2011. That funding was due to HB 2169 which dealt with earlier collection of unclaimed property. You can find the entire report here.
That forecast came on the heels of last Wednesday’s announcement that a reduction in the demand for state services has saved the state around $340 million for the rest of the biennium. All this good news has reduced the current budget shortfall from about $1.5 billion to $1.1 billion – still a very large hole to fill.
You can expect to see the 2012 Supplemental Operating Budget early next week, and I will include information about it in my next update.
Jobs Now
We also expect to roll out our Jobs Now proposal next week. It’s a plan House and Senate lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are developing to quickly create real jobs in every corner of the state – tens of thousands of family wage jobs.
It’s modeled after a successful effort led by former Gov. Dan Evans in the 1970’s. Put simply, it front-loads construction projects already scheduled to be done in future years. It will put thousands and thousands of people to work as early as this spring building the infrastructure that will help build a better economy – and a better Washington.
The need for both things – jobs and infrastructure – is great. Construction workers on the west side of the state face a 30 percent unemployment rate. No other major industry comes close. East of the mountains, some trades are up to 60 percent unemployed. This proposal is the fastest way to get those people back on the job.
You can read more about the plan and see a list of proposed projects here.