Telephone Town Hall recap and meeting the needs of all Washingtonians

Telephone Town Hall Recap

Thanks to those of you who joined us for our telephone town hall on Wednesday, Feb. 24. We answered your questions on a variety of topics including the environment, funding for education and fixing our broken mental health system.

You asked us tough questions and made it clear about the need to invest in affordable housing, resources for people experiencing homelessness and the necessity for common sense gun responsibility laws. We enjoyed the opportunity to hear from you directly about the issues that matter most to you and your family and the chance to inform you firsthand about what is happening down in Olympia.

If you were unable to listen in live, you can listen to a recording of the call here.

Meeting the needs of all Washingtonians  

The session is flying by! Last week we passed the House budget and now are in the midst of budget negotiations. Some people have said that we should wait on critical issues, that a supplemental session isn’t the time to make changes. However, we believe that every legislative session gives us an opportunity to make critical investments.

 Our budget includes funding for:

• Helping the homeless, especially kids and families – There are more than 35,500 homeless students in Washington. This is a moral tragedy. Our proposal makes a number of investments in critical services to reduce homelessness, including services specifically intended for homeless students and their families.
• Improving lives for foster children – All of Washington’s children deserve an opportunity to succeed. We’re investing in resources to improve the lives of foster kids by increasing the number of foster families in Washington.
• Continuing to fix mental health care – We must make improvements to get our loved ones the care they need. This proposal will help us provide higher quality care with additional hospital staff.
• Education funding – Fulfilling our paramount duty to the one million school kids in Washington is about more than fully funding schools. We must have the right policies in place that ensure all students have the opportunity to learn and succeed. This budget proposal would increase beginning teacher salaries, expand all-day kindergarten and reduce K-3 class sizes.

We have until midnight Thursday to achieve our goals. We look forward to a busy week!