Special legislative session starts today

Staff Writer

OLYMPIA — The governor called the legislature into special session today after they failed to complete an operating budget during the regular session, which officially ended Sunday.

In a press conference Friday, the last day for lawmakers on the floor, Gov. Jay Inslee criticized the Senate Republicans and said he was disappointed by both chambers’ failure to compromise in the allotted 105-day session.

“Now I’m doing everything I can humanly imagine to do, short of water-boarding to get these folks to negotiate,” Inslee said. “Which the Republicans have refused to date. I’ll continue to encourage them, I’ll continue to try to make it easier for them.”

He said both chambers would have to drop their requirements and roadblocks to reach an agreement before the end of the fiscal year, July 1. He said both budgets presented plans that partially fulfilled the requirements of the McCleary decision, a state Supreme Court ruling that declared the state was not meeting its duty of fully funding education, but neither in its current form would suffice as a permanent solution.

Senate Majority leader Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, said the Republican caucus is as invested in completing a budget as the governor and the House Democrats and has meetings with budget leaders all week.

“Until you solve the biggest portion of the budget as to how much and where it comes from,” Schoesler said. “It’s difficult to finish the other segments in the budget.”

The sticking point in negotiations, which Republican leadership commonly refers to as ghost dollars, is a series of tax bills that have not been brought to the House floor and are necessary to implement the Democrats’ budget proposal.

In a press conference on Thursday, Democrats in the House and Senate countered Republicans’ ghost dollars argument by bringing up a key portion of the Republicans’ budget.

The Senate’s budget plan calls for a levy swap, which would result in an increase in property taxes for many urban areas in Western Washington such as Seattle and decrease property taxes for many smaller school districts in central and eastern Washington. The tax shift would have to be approved by the voters in November.

A member of the Appropriations committee who is in charge of the education plan, Rep. Pat Sullivan, D-Covington, said any tax increase would be unpopular with voters and could cause the plan to fail.

“We have serious concerns about the fact that they sent their revenue package to the voters,” Sullivan said. “If the voters turned down an unpopular property tax in November, it leaves a huge hole in the budget, forcing us right back into special session in November.”

Inslee said whatever the legislature negotiates, it must include a constitutionally sound plan to solve the McCleary issue, which would mean an increase in funding which would require some new revenue as well as changes to the local levy system. He said the House and the Senate have each solved one of those issues in their budget proposals, and at some point the legislature must create a version that includes both.

Inslee declined to comment on the status of other legislative items at the press conference, such as Hirst, saying the legislature needs to focus on their the operating budget and funding education, and other issues could come later.