Legislative Commentary

There’s nothing like a winter bird-hunting trip to offset all the activity that goes with celebrating Christmas and the coming of the New Year.

I managed to put farming chores and the Legislature on the back burner long enough to break the shotgun out more than once recently.

First came a duck hunt on the Yakima River near the Tri-Cities, and then some pheasant hunting off to the east, aided by my four-legged friend Colt, the faithful Vizsla. Besides winding down from the holidays it allowed me to see the ongoing benefits of conservation practices in our part of the state.

Even though the Legislature didn’t convene until Jan. 9, my duties as leader of the Senate majority took me away from the district part of this past week.

The calendar included taking part in the orientation for our new senators; joining other legislative leaders for a joint news conference; meeting with editorial boards at the daily newspapers in Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett, plus the Puget Sound Business Journal; and participating in the annual legislative previews in front of the Seattle CityClub and, later, the Association of Washington Business.

This year’s session is the “long” one, meaning it lasts 105 days instead of 60 (which is the “short” year).

The length allows us more time to get new state budgets together. Some are pessimistic that we can solve the state’s education-funding concerns in that amount of time; my response is that I do not plan to fail.

Education funding: We’ll solve it, but water 
and other regional issues need attention too

This headline from Spokane’s Spokesman-Review newspaper could have been published anytime in the past few years, in the wake of the state Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in the McCleary v. State of Washington education-funding case: “Future bleak for Washington schools.”

When did that headline actually appear? More than 30 years ago, in 1986, as our state began to see more one-party control of the legislative process and non-education interests began battling for a bigger share of the state budget, which caused education’s share to shrink.

Since our Majority Coalition Caucus took over leadership of the Senate in 2013, we have made a historic turn in the direction of K-12 funding and added $4.6 billion to Washington’s public schools. We’ve increased per-pupil expenditures by 33 percent since 2013. Education now receives a larger share of state general-fund spending than at any point in the past 30 years.

This year we must agree on reforms to the way our schools are funded, specifically, bring an end to the use of local-levy dollars to pay for things that are considered basic education. If it’s part of basic education (which includes teacher compensation), then it needs to be funded at the state level. It took many months to gather compensation-related data from Washington’s 295 school districts, and we can now factor that into a solution.

Some folks would have you believe K-12 funding is the only big issue on the table for 2017. Not by a long shot – in the Senate, we’ll also be working to address several regional issues. These include water concerns east of the Cascades; the fallout from a water-related court case that affects development in rural counties (known as the Hirst decision; more about that later); housing in the Puget Sound area; and the health of rural-county economies.

State’s finances look promising – so why 
does Governor Inslee want a record tax hike?

In November, Washington’s chief economist recently offered the fourth and final revenue forecast of 2016. It’s the estimate we will carry into the 2017 session (although 2017’s first quarterly forecast will arrive in February) and would have been the latest set of numbers available to Gov. Jay Inslee as he prepared the budget proposal he issued in mid-December.

The forecast itself, which was adopted by the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council, is positive. For example:

Historic revenue growth for 2015-17 – If the trend continues state government will see 12.8 percent revenue growth for the current two-year budget cycle, which ends next June. That is the most growth since the boom of 2005-07 (which preceded the Great Recession and years of declining revenue forecasts).

Largest projected reserves in state history. The balance sheet now indicates lawmakers should expect $2.1 billion in reserves at the end of the current budget cycle – $900 million in unrestricted reserves and $1.2 billion in the constitutional rainy-day fund.

Budget in balance through 2017-19 – The cost of continuing existing state services, along with debt service, pension payments, and additional spending required by law (such as K-3 class-size reduction efforts) is projected to be in balance not only through the end of the current budget cycle but through the 2017-19 budget cycle as well. That is great news.

Here’s a question folks should be asking the governor: if revenue is still expected to grow by double-digits naturally, meaning tax rates don’t change, but economic activity increases – then why did he call for a whopping $8.7 billion in additional taxes?

To me, Inslee’s push for a new tax on certain investment income seems to be all about paving the way to a full-blown state income tax. His desire for an energy tax on some of the state’s major industries is tied to his wanting to be America’s “green governor.” As for wanting higher taxes on service providers – how does that put people back to work in our state?

Wheat All About It! podcast makes debut

The Washington Grain Commission has introduced the Wheat All About It! Podcast. Available on the WGC website, (wagrains.org), or on iTunes (search for Wheat All About It), it is meant for downloading to smart phones for later listening.

According to the WGC, the podcasts run an average of 20 minutes and with adequate Internet speeds should load in a minute or so. Four episodes are already available, and in February, podcasts will be released once a week.