Telephone Town Hall Tomorrow & Supporting Working Families

Join Us Tomorrow for a Telephone Town Hall

The 11th District delegation will be holding a Telephone Town Hall tomorrow Wednesday, March 17 from 6 to 7 p.m. You should receive a phone call on your landline at 6 p.m. that day.

If you only have a cell phone, or otherwise want to join, sign up to receive a call or dial in to 877-229-8493 (PIN: 116277). We hope you can take the time to join us!

If you have things to say but can’t participate in the Telephone Town Hall, please feel free to email me at steve.bergquist@leg.wa.gov. I try to respond to every call, email and letter from a citizen in the 11^th District.

It’s an honor and a privilege to serve as your representative, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Education Survey In light of Governor Inslee’s recent executive order requiring schools across the state to provide families with the opportunity for at least two days of in-person schooling per week (see below), I want to hear from you and your families about your priorities for K-12 education. This is particularly significant as we deal with learning loss and other affects on our K-12 education system during the COVID-19 pandemic. Please take a few minutes to respond to this survey.

Transportation Survey Results

Thank you to those who participated in the survey I sent out in my last newsletter. I asked you to share your opinions on several proposals for funding much-needed investments in Washington’s transportation systems. Your responses told me a lot about where our district stands on how to pay for the needed investments and which areas of transportation should be prioritized (multimodal, road improvements, electrification, etc.).

For more information, check out the 2021 11th District Transportation Survey results.

Governor Inslee’s “Return to School” order

Last Friday, Governor Inslee announced an executive order related to protecting the
mental and behavioral health of children and youth in Washington. The order requires all public
K–12 schools in Washington to provide each student with the opportunity to learn in-person at
their school, for no fewer than two days per week, by April 19, 2021.

Please note that this proclamation does not require you to send your students back to in-person instruction. It allows parents to continue to choose remote learning. This proclamation only addresses what opportunities school districts are required to provide to families.

Learn more in this FAQ about the order, including its implementation and implications.

Now that the governor has issued this executive order, we must ensure all teachers, staff, and students are equipped and protected in the classroom. As a legislator, my top priority is to listen to the community and determine what policy or budget action the Legislature can take to ensure everyone is safe. With the COVID-19 variants and potential for vaccine distribution to continue through the summer, I am prepared to make the investments needed to keep everyone in school safe, whether that be upgraded air control systems or clear dividers to limit spread of particles or more personal protective equipment.

Your feedback on what actions we can take to ensure the long-term safety for every teacher, student, and staff member is welcome! Whether you choose to send your student to class or not, I want to hear what you think and how we can keep everyone safe through hopefully the last few months of the COVID-19 restrictions.

Roadmap to Recovery: Moving to Phase 3

Upholding our promise to working families

The last bill voted off the House floor before Tuesday’s cutoff was the Working Families Tax Exemption, which would mean greater financial stability for over 400,000 taxpayers in our state, making them eligible for a credit between $500 and $950. This would put more money directly into the pockets of these working families. The Working Families Tax Exemption, or Recovery Rebate, is our promise to the people of Washington that when they work hard to achieve their dreams, their community will rise up to support them. This is our chance to reclaim the American Dream as a tool for racial justice, economic recovery, and community health. Our state is known for our upside-down tax structure, where those who make the least pay the most in taxes. Putting people first means recognizing our wrongs to make them right. This Recovery Rebate is a lifeline for the immigrants, refugees, people of color, and low-income workers who have always kept our communities strong. It’s our turn to lift them up and give everyone a chance at a healthy, happy life.

Giving our kids a fair start in life

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the child care industry was already in crisis. According to a report published by the Association of Washington Business, the child care crisis costs Washington businesses $2 billion a year, while working parents forgo $14 billion a year in lost wages due to the lack of child care access. In the wake of the pandemic, the problem has been exacerbated with huge numbers of parents, especially women, leaving the workforce or reducing hours due to limited access to child care. In order to restart our state’s economy, we have to invest in child care. Parents can’t rejoin the work force until they have child care, businesses can’t reopen until their workers have a safe and affordable place to take their kids, and all kids deserve a fair start. The Fair Start for Kids Act is a multi-faceted approach to solving the child care crisis, addressing racial inequity for providers and families, and helping the economy. The bill aims to make child care more affordable for families, stabilize and expand the diverse child care workforce, support the expansion of child care, and strengthen prevention and intervention services. Through measures such as increasing child care subsidy rates, reducing families’ copays, and offering business and mental health supports, the Fair Start for Kids Act will aid in getting parents back to work, our economy up and running, and more kids a fair start in life. I’m happy to report that last week, the House passed the Fair Start for Kids Act, on a bipartisan vote of 58-38! Accessible, affordable, high-quality child care is the key to restarting our economy, getting parents back to work, and giving our kids a fair start in life.⁠⁠ By investing in child care, and therefore in our children, we are making an investment in the future of Washington state.

Expanding coverage for Paid Family & Medical Leave

This week, we saw the passage of House Bill 1073, sponsored by my colleague Rep. Liz Berry, which expands access to Paid Family & Medical Leave (PFML) for workers who would have otherwise qualified except for a cut in work hours due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

PFML has improved health and stabilized economic security for working families and small businesses throughout the COVID-19 crisis. It is critical that we accelerate and expand access to this program, not only because we are in the middle of a global pandemic and more workers need this safety net to care for themselves or loved ones who get sick, but because we have a moral obligation to ensure that this program, which all workers are paying into, is working for ALL Washingtonians, especially for our workers of color.

HB 1073 will remove barriers to access that will make the program more equitable by:

• expanding job protection and continuation of health benefits to employees who have been on the job for 90 days,
• lowering the qualifying threshold to $1,000 in earnings during the previous year, and
• expanding the definition of family to include those with a close association equivalent to family.

Sincerely,

Rep. Steve Bergquist