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School Levies
For the past two years we’ve had a group of technical experts working on proposals on how to fix school levies. They just released their report, available here. The report is amazingly detailed and is a great introduction into how levies work and some possible approaches to fixing the problems. I read the immediately previous…
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Budget Handout
I wrote a small handout on the Washington budget we adopted last month that I’ve used at a number of meetings. I’ve attached a copy here in printable form. It’s similar to a post I did at the end of April about the original House budget proposal, but updated with final changes and numbers. 2011…
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Education Funding
I’ve received hundreds of email messages this session urging me to not cut education funding. I agree. I tried very hard this year to have the least impact on K-12 as possible in the budget process. The House budget proposal was better for K-12 than either the Senate’s or the Governor’s proposals. In the final…
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Public Safety Pensions
This year we faced a daunting problem: balancing a budget with a precipitous decline in revenue due to the ongoing recession. We made cuts to everything, including healthcare for children, public education, mental health care, and compensation for employees. As a new budget chairman, I entered the job with a handful of principles: Nobody was…
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Slowing the Growth of Medicaid
New York state has a process for meeting an attractive goal: slowing the growth of Medicaid spending to the level of medical inflation. The New York Times opined positively on it in March. The article is worth reading and it sounds really great, but you have to understand what it means. Medicaid cost growth has…
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House Budget Proposal
Earlier this month I released the House budget proposal for 2011-13. Just before the end of the regular session, the Senate released their proposal. I asked for the job of chairman of the budget committee, but it’s clear my timing with the economy might have been better. This budget is responsible, thoughtful, and sustainable. I’ve…
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Revenue Forecast Due This Week
On Thursday the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council will issue our forecast for future revenue. This will cover both the current fiscal year (from now until June 30th) and the 2011-13 biennium. As has been widely reported we’re expecting bad news. My personal guess is that revenues will be down somewhere between $500 million and…
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March 12 Town Hall
The 2011 legislative session is now halfway through. 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, March 12 for an update and discussion on the budget and other legislation of interest. When: Saturday, March 12 at 10:30 a.m. Where: Redmond…
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Supplemental Budget Action
Today the House and Senate passed a bipartisan supplemental budget bill that sets us up to finish the 2010 fiscal year (ending in June 2011) in the black. In December we faced a $1.2 billion shortfall between expected revenue and expected expenses and solved $588 million of the problem. We solved another $367 million today,…
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Best new news service: Undead Olympia
At last someone is analyzing Olympia news with a sense of humor. I only get gashed a little in their article on the budget we put out last week. http://www.undeadolympia.com/2011/01/18/ross-hunters-budget-proposal-you-win-some-you-ooze-some/ A good quote: Though vampires, zombies, and werewolves are glad to see his budget proposal eliminate the Basic Health program, reduce care for the elderly,…