On March 2^nd the House passed 6392 with some minor modifications from the original Senate bill. This is a huge win – the House has blocked forward passage on 520 for years, and we finally overcame the opposition from influential members on the other end of the bridge. Some modifications were made that I believe improve functionality, including identifying some funding for building an additional Sound Transit Link Light Rail station under the Montlake interchange. This would allow a vastly more effective transit connection and would remove many busses from Montlake Avenue, improving the traffic pattern in the neighborhood.

Info on the bill itself can be found here: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=6392&year=2009

 I expect construction to start on the Eastside projects as soon as this fall or early spring, and the design effort on the Westside landing will continue within the boundaries of the current environmental impact statement. I expect the final design issues on the Westside to be done in the next few months.

I am incredibly pleased with this development, and expect the Senate to concur with our changes in the next few days.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/195479.asp

Microsoft even has their own website for the campaign, and a full page newspaper ad. I’m starting to get mail from people about it, and I agree. I have been pushing this project for years. We are very close to taking the next step – approving funding for the eastside projects. We also need to continue to move forward on the westside, making necessary modifications to the westside design within the conditions of the environmental impact statement.

I’ve written about this project in the past – click the “520″ link on the tags sidebar to the right for more pieces.

We should be able to move a bill this week.

I prepared extensively to try to avoid a disaster. We managed the room layout so that we had seats for almost everyone. We had sign up sheets distributed around in the hallway so there was not a crush of people trying to sign up. We had discreet security, which fortunately we did not have to call on. I spent more time preparing for this hearing than I have any other hearing I’ve done in 8 years in the Legislature. Most people thought it went very well.

I announced a set of rules at the beginning of the hearing that almost everyone chose to follow.  The rules we follow in committee are the same as the rules of decorum we follow on the House floor.

 Here’s what I said at the beginning of the hearing:

 I am fully committed to letting as many of you speak as possible. 

 And to that end, let me lay out the ground rules for today’s meeting so we’re all clear.

 At no time will I allow anyone to impugn the motives of any person or any piece of legislation being discussed. We all care deeply about our state and the families and businesses within its borders. We might disagree about how to manage this budget situation, but I will insist that today’s hearing remain focused on the merits of the bills in front of us.

 At no time will I allow anyone to use threatening language or disruptive behavior. I will not indulge members of the audience in cat-calling, name-calling, whistling, cheering, booing or any other disruption to the hearing.

 I will keep a strict time limit of two minutes for every speaker. Two minutes is about 200 words. Two minutes is 120 seconds. Every speaker will get two minutes and no more.

The ranking Republican member Rep. Ed Orcutt made similar remarks, which I thought were very gracious and made the same points.

 I used the gavel to interrupt one speaker because I felt he was impugning members of the legislature. Other than a brief 20 second interruption we heard his entire commentary, which was fine. He got 2:47 to make up for the time I used up. Immediately after I asked the one person to confine his remarks to the bill the crowd clapped. I gaveled them down too. The media covered this because that’s their job.

 I’ve had this particular person in front of my committee several times and he always does this. If you don’t force him to confine his remarks to the bill he becomes more and more outrageous until you do. It’s hard to figure out exactly how to play it – my goal was to be as fair as possible, give everyone a chance to share their views on the bill, hear as many people as possible (I had 40 pages of people who wanted to testify) and have a hearing that was a legislative event and not theater. If you don’t use the gavel the hearing can get out of control. If you do, you can be perceived as a bully. I have used the gavel 3 times in 8 years. Twice with this one individual and once with another legislator who was badgering a witness.

I alternated between pro and con panels until I ran out of con. Everyone got exactly the same amount of time. I had about 4 times as many people who wanted to speak for the bill as against, but I balanced the time 50-50. It’s difficult to keep events like this dignified. I feel I succeeded.

Eastside residents invited to February 20 town hall with local legislators

 February 11, 2010

State Sen. Rodney Tom (D-Bellevue) and Reps. Ross Hunter (D-Medina) and Deb Eddy (D-Kirkland) invite Eastside residents to a Town Hall on Saturday, February 20 for a discussion of the current legislative session.

 The legislators will provide updates on the state’s budget situation, education issues like Race to the Top and finance reform, and the SR 520 project. Residents are encouraged to come with questions or ideas about other issues of interest.

 When: Saturday, February 20 at 11 a.m.
Where: Crossroads Community Center (16000 NE 10^th Street, Bellevue)

 For more information, contact Rep. Hunter’s Legislative Assistant Marilyn Pedersen at (425) 453-3064 or pedersen.marilyn@leg.wa.gov.

# # #

Contacts:                   Sen. Rodney Tom - (360) 786-7694 or tom.rodney@leg.wa.gov

Rep. Ross Hunter – (360) 786-7936 or hunter.ross@leg.wa.gov

Rep. Deb Eddy – (360) 786-7848 or eddy.deb@leg.wa.gov

Media Staff:               Jaime Smith – (360) 786-7631 or smith.jaime@leg.wa.gov

Flat is the new up.

We’re expecting a relatively flat forecast. This means that for the first time in almost 2 years our previous forecast will line up with our new forecast. This is a pretty good sign, but one I will have to eat if we have a significant negative surprise in the forecast on Friday.

http://www.erfc.wa.gov/pubs/feb10.pdf

I pointed her to the results of a study we did in 2008 – the Basic Education Financing Joint Task Force. We used the Washington State Institute for Public Policy to examine the research in education, try to weed out the questionable work, and quantify what we proposed and how it would affect student learning. I warn people that reading too much into the details here can lead to absurd results, but I think they did a good job.

The results for our proposal, which is about a 40% increase in spending are below. More detail on their methodology is available in the actual report, available here. See appendix B.

run effects of the Task Force portfolio on high school graduation rates in Washington.21

Governor Gregoire talked about it on the campaign trail in 2004. Last week when she proposed closing some tax loopholes she included removing the bullion exemption in her proposed legislation. She removed both a B&O exemption and a sales tax exemption bullion dealers have had for a long time. I sponsored her legislation (a routine courtesy offered by committee chairs to Governors) and had a hearing on it early this week.

The coin and bullion industry made a compelling case that removing the sales tax exemption would result in a significant loss of sales. The fiscal note from the Department of Revenue confirms this, estimating a loss of 70% of the business. This is why there is a sales tax exemption.

Bullion dealers also have an exemption from the B&O tax. This tax is assessed at the retailing rate of 0.471%. It’s one of the lowest B&O rates around. This is the basic business tax in Washington.

This week I released a bill (HB 3176) that terminates some exemptions, clarifies some parts of the law the Supreme Court seems confused about and fixes some other problems. In it I propose repealing the B&O exemption, but not the sales tax exemption for gold bullion sales.

The Seattle Times wrote an editorial today about the bill titled “State legislators should resist urge to raise taxes.”

 They say “Standing by is House Bill 3176, an 89-page compendium of loophole closers, all of which give the state more money. This page supports parts of HB 3176, much of which has been introduced in separate bills.”

After the nice bits they go on to excoriate me for closing the sales tax exemption for bullion dealers, which I didn’t do. Usually they treat me pretty well so I can’t complain too loudly, but I’m innocent on this one.

Like most judicial opinions that require the state to do something, rather than an opinion ruling some action of the state unconstitutional, there is a lot of deference given to the legislature in how to carry out the ruling. For example, when the US Supreme Court ruled in the Brown vs. Board of Education case the ruling phrase was that we should use “all deliberate speed” in eliminating segregation in schools. This was pretty ambiguous, but served as the basis for many actions, including federal protection of children attending previously forbidden schools and much court supervision over desegregation plans.

Judge Erlick ruled that the plan we passed last year (HB 2261, the result of our Basic Education Financing Task Force) was an acceptable framework for clearly stating what basic education entails and determining the cost. I’m pleased that the plan we produced meets the court’s approval, but now we will have to both close down the details of it AND determine a funding plan.

Our approach to determining the right amount of funding for K12 is called the “model schools” approach. We lay out the resources needed per building, and scale them based on the number of children in the school, and the number of children in the school that require special ed, gifted, or english langauge help, and the overall level of poverty in the school’s population. We adoped the basic structure of this approach last year, did a lot of detail work in the interim, and will adopt the final values for class size and other critical values this session.

Of course, this will be very contentious. In light of this ruling, determining the end goals in the definition of basic education will, in fact, require the state to fund them. This will necessarily result in less being spent on other priorities.

This interim we will have to address the financing plan – not how to spend it, but how to ensure that there is enough money available. I think we need to discuss many things about local and state property taxes and the right mix between them, including ways to make school funding more consistent and reliable.

I organized many of my collegues to sign a letter to the governor and the attorney general asking them to not appeal this case. I think Judge Erlich only pointed what is obvious to anyone who looks at our school system and compares it to the guarantee in our constitution, that school funding “is not ample, is not stable, and is not dependable.”

The Judge continues “Accordingly, the State is directed to determine the cost of amply providing for basic education and a basic program of education for all children resident in the State of Washington. The State must also comply with the Constitutional mandate to provide stable and dependable funding for such costs of basic education. Funding must be based as closely as reasonably practicable on the actual costs of providing such programs of basic education. The means of fulfilling this Constitutional mandate properly fall within the prerogative of the Legislature.”

We have work to do. I see a long summer working out the details of our approach.

For details you can read the actual opinion. 99 pages.

http://www.kingcounty.gov/courts/SuperiorCourt/~/media/courts/SuperiorCourt/Docs/McCleary.ashx

Statement from Rep. Ross Hunter on King County Superior Court’s school funding ruling

“Today’s court ruling doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know – the Legislature is not giving schools the money they need to provide the quality of education we want. This issue is why I ran for the Legislature in 2002 and it remains my top priority to this day.”

“We took an historic step forward last session when we passed House Bill 2261. We expanded the definition of basic education and committed ourselves to reworking the funding formula to make sure lawmakers pay for it. We made students and student success the basis of our new funding approach. I’ve said all along that when our children graduate from high school they should be prepared for jobs that don’t require paper hats. Clearly the courts agree.”

“I don’t think the state should waste money appealing this decision. It lights a much-needed fire under legislators to put education funding first.”