Ritzville state representative writes of budgets

by Mark Schoesler<br> State Representative Ninth District
| June 10, 2011 6:00 AM

GUEST EDITORIAL

OLYMPIA - As you may have already heard, the "special" legislative session is over. The Senate and House of Representatives formally and simultaneously adjourned shortly after 10:30 p.m. on the May 30.

Having served our legislative district for 19 years, I can tell you it's not at all unusual for a legislative session, regular or special, to come down to the final hours or even final minutes. Working against such a highly visible deadline seems to help some lawmakers focus on what's truly essential ("we absolutely have to pass these five bills") and reach compromise ("look, we've got one day left to sort this out").

The final few days of this overtime also brought time-wasting votes by the House majority on a bill to raise taxes - seemingly orchestrated to serve as the basis for a legal challenge to the two-thirds tax-adoption rule reinstated by Initiative 1053 - and legislation that would have jacked up an array of vehicle-related fees. There even was talk of an attempt to raise other fees to the tune of $80 million, the beneficiaries including the speaker of the House's favorite cause: low-income housing. Fortunately, none of these came to pass.

Many of us in the Senate were adamant about making sure approval was given to several bills we saw as necessary to implement the budget. These included an important reform to the state-run workers' compensation system, a consolidation of the "back-office" functions of several agencies, an effort to begin lowering the state's debt load and a measure that would allow voters to enhance the state's rainy-day fund (more detail on these and other reforms is below).

It's unfortunate that a regular session and all 30 days of a special session were required to do the people's business this year. However, at least it wasn't a repeat of 2010, when the majority party dragged us (and taxpayers) through a 30-day special session so it could adopt the largest tax package in state history.

Of course, it's great to be back home on the farm, where I'm already making a dent in the backlog of work that got put off because of the special session. With any luck there will be no need for me to return to the Capitol until July, when the Select Committee on Pension Policy meets (as chairman, I decided we could do without a June meeting to save on the associated costs).

Budgets reflect restraint

The Legislature adopted a new two-year transportation budget during the regular session, but the operating and capital budgets weren't passed until the special session was almost finished. Each is newsworthy for different reasons.

Operating:

In the end, the Legislature budgeted $32.2 billion to pay for the next two years of state operations. That's more than will be spent for the two-year period that ends June 30, but this also is the first budget since 1997 to spend less money than the state expects to take in from taxes and other sources (around $350 million less). On top of that restraint, there will be about $700 million in reserve. That could prove to be very important in a couple of weeks, when the second revenue forecast of the year is announced.

Having worked on significant sections of this plan, as one of the two Senate Republican budget negotiators, I am satisfied with many of the choices, especially as they concern natural resources. Funding for our agricultural fairs will remain whole. The conservation districts will see a drop in funding, but it would have been much worse had the Senate not taken a bipartisan and united stand in negotiating with the House.

This budget agreement also does something unprecedented in the area of water management, by linking the Department of Ecology's performance in processing water rights to its funding. I can't overstate what a breakthrough that is.

K-12 education won't receive the amount of support I or our educators would like to see, but still, spending on basic education overall and spending per pupil will be higher these next two years than it is now.

Also, I helped convince others to preserve what is called "local effort assistance" or levy equalization funding, which benefits two-thirds of the school districts in our state. It was not only my top education priority for the budget but also, based on their testimony before the Senate budget committee, the top priority for the Washington Education Association and the Public School Employees of Washington.

My biggest disappointment, clearly, is the significant reduction of support in this budget for our higher-education institutions, including Washington State University and Eastern Washington University. This is a complete turnaround from 2007, when I won support from the Legislature for a 10-year tuition cap that lasted only two years. I'm concerned that the drop in funding goes hand in hand with the granting of tuition-setting authority to the institutions themselves, meaning regents and trustees who aren't elected.

Even though the new budget doesn't take effect July 1, several groups have it in their crosshairs already, according to this report in Washington State Wire.

Capital:

The story of the new $2.7 billion capital budget was less about the projects it will fund and more about how it affects the operating budget. The two budgets are typically viewed as separate - one helps build the school, the other helps pay for its operation. But the revenue bonds that are sold to fund capital projects are paid off through the operating budget, so there is a clear connection under the surface. In the new budget about $2 billion will go for "debt service" alone (about 6.1 percent).

As capital budgets go, this new one is focused largely on K-12 projects, although it also includes $35 million toward a new eastern Washington medical school (the Washington State University-Spokane Riverpoint Biomedical and Health Services Facility) and $30 million to remodel Patterson Hall at Eastern Washington University.

A million dollars - only half as much as I had requested, unfortunately, but I know it was due to a desire to keep the capital budget lean - is appropriated for two projects in the Columbia Basin groundwater management area. Those will, to use the formal budget language, build localized hydrologic models for municipal supply sources and aquifer storage and recovery potential; and develop and implement methods to identify sustainable wells near the East Low Canal.

It concerns me, however, that money is still going to acquire land through the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program. As an outdoorsman I have nothing against wildlife and recreation, of course, but the state can't seem to properly manage the land it already controls - so it really doesn't need more.

The vote on the capital budget was held up until legislators could agree on an important new restraint: a reduction in the state's debt limit, which will move from 9 percent now to 7.75 percent over the next several years. The less debt the state carries, the less must be paid for debt service, which frees up more dollars for essential government services. Also, an independent commission will be formed to take an in-depth look at Washington's debt.