Dear friends & neighbors,
I hope you’re enjoying the start of your Summer! I wanted to get in touch and let you know what’s happening in Washington state as we continue to move forward and more laws go into effect.
A balanced budget
We came into this year facing a pretty significant budget hole. However, I could not vote for a budget that would cut funds to public schools, health care, seniors, kids, and the environment. This budget includes $100 million in grants to local law enforcement to boost public safety and hire more police officers. There’s also $145 million tackle the housing and homeless crisis and $6 million for diversion funding to keep children from living on the street.
For public schools, we boosted special education by $775 million, a long-overdue reform. And we made college a bit more affordable with zero increase in tuition while boosting the Washington College Grant by $45 million.
Additionally, we were able to avoid furloughs, allowing the hardworking people who give us a functioning state government on the job and collecting a paycheck.
Our Capital Budget includes funds for many great community improvement projects throughout the district. Some of the things I’m most excited about are $4.2 million for Maple Court Permanent Supportive Housing and $3 million for sediment clean up in the Budd Inlet.
Creating new sources of revenue
It’s no secret that Washington’s tax code is regressive and is failing our working people. It’s part of the reason we found ourselves facing the budget hole. It also made its failures abundantly clear when some people’s first solution was to furlough workers and take money directly out of their pocket. This is why I support efforts to adjust our tax code and look for new revenue sources that will allow us to rely less on sales tax.
One of the updates we made this session was the updating the Business & Occupancy Tax for payment card processing. HB 2020 clarifies the taxes that are paid on fees for electronic card payments, giving businesses certainty in the tax treatment of processing fees. Specifically, it establishes that payment processors will pay the B&O tax only on the processing fees. The law also creates a new B&O tax rate of 3.1% for payment card processing activities. I support this as a small business owner because it will help my customers (the working people of Washington) and not force me to close my doors.
Rep. Parshley’s bills signed into law
HB 1688– This bill establishes statewide standards for installing and operating electric security alarm systems. This helps consumers by adding additional protections
HB 1511 – Updating collective bargaining for ferry captains helping to mitigate labor stoppages, a zero-cost way to help improve our ferry services.
HB 1186– Allows emergency medical facilities to dispense a full script of medication granting peace of mind to those who experience a medical emergency and live in a pharmacy desert.
HB 1573 – Modifies the date of when a newly elected official may take their Oath of Office
As always, it’s a pleasure serving you and please don’t hesitate to reach out, my doors always open.
Lisa Parshley
State Representative
22nd Legislative District