Category: Budget

Expensive Cloud, Silver Lining…

Mike Siegal | Seattle Times March 25, 2012

One of the key responsibilities for the state is running the prison system. Overall we spend about $1.5 billion on the entire corrections system, including medical care for inmates. The US Constitution requires that inmates receive healthcare that meets the same standards as is available to the rest of the community.

Two new drugs have recently become available for treating Hepatitis C, an infectious disease that affects up to 20% of the prison population. The drugs are a miracle – and may save lots of money in the long run by avoiding the liver damage that comes from Hepatitis C. Of course, there’s a “but” to this silver lining. As you can see in this NPR story, it can cost up to $150,000 for a course of treatment for a single patient.

Our estimate for the cost to the Washington corrections system over the next three years is about $210 million, plus about $20 million a year out into the future. Wow. Not a place I’m excited about spending money, but a clear constitutional requirement and an opportunity to have a huge positive impact on the health status of a troubled population.

Dire Future for State Budgets?

Graph showing state and local health care costs vs. payroll costs over timeThe Washington Post has an article today (or some recent day – I only read online) about the long-term pressures faced by state and local governments.  The article compares growth in key revenue sources with growth in costs and projects a dire future. The title is “GAO: Without draconian cuts, states face decades-long fiscal crisis“.

Key concerns they have include

  • The sales tax continues to decline as a fraction of GDP. This means that over time people buy less stuff (as a percentage of their income) that is taxed.
  • Tax revenue in general will not return to pre-recession levels, as a percentage of GDP, until 2058.
  • State and local healthcare costs for employees and retirees, as well as Medicaid costs, will grow from 3.9% of GDP to 7.4% of GDP by 2060.

Continue reading “Dire Future for State Budgets?”

Rep. Hunter reelected to chair House Appropriations Committee

December 11, 2014

Olympia – Rep. Ross Hunter of Medina will again head the key budget-writing efforts of the majority House Democrats in the 2015 Legislature, serving as chair of the Appropriations Committee.

The Appropriations Committee is responsible for writing the two-year state operating budget, which pays for general government expenditures like teacher salaries, health care services, prison operations, and the higher education system. It also handles global fiscal issues such as pension policy as well as bills with significant fiscal impacts.

“We have a difficult challenge ahead of us,” said Hunter. “Education funding will be our top priority this session, but it’s not our only obligation. We have other responsibilities to communities like mental health, seniors and low-income families, and foster kids that we cannot put off any longer. We need to ensure that we deal responsibly with long-term obligations like pensions and bond payments, and we need to invest in efficiency improvements in our IT infrastructure.

“An all-cuts budget like the ones we passed the last three cycles will not lead to a more prosperous Washington. I look forward to working with the other members of the House, Senator Hill, and Governor Inslee to find bipartisan, fiscally responsible solutions to our budget challenges that preserve our values and ensure all Washingtonians have opportunities to succeed.”

The 105-day 2015 session of the Legislature opens January 12 in Olympia.

For more information
Rep. Ross Hunter, 360-786-7936, ross.hunter@leg.wa.gov
Staff: Andy McVicar, 360-786-7215, andrew.mcvicar@leg.wa.gov Continue reading “Rep. Hunter reelected to chair House Appropriations Committee”

WA State Budget – Ross to talk, show charts, take questions

map to NW Arts CenterI’m planning to give an update on the state budget situation Wednesday December 10th at the 48th District Democrats December meeting. The meeting starts at 7:00 PM. It’s not a super-long talk, but I’ll take questions for half an hour or so. They have a section on the bylaws that starts at 8:00 that I’m sure is important, but sounds deadly to me. It’s fine for people that come only for the budget talk to leave at 8:00. I’ll do at least one more of these, and all three 48th District legislators are having a town hall meeting on Jan 10th, though that won’t have as much detail on the budget as this will.

Northwest Arts Center
9825 NE 24th St., Bellevue

Wed. Dec 10th, 7:00 PM. 

There is limited parking, so if it gets full wander up the hill to Clyde Hill elementary school and park there.

Man Bites Dog

I got the following email from WA State Auditor Troy Kelley today. It’s part of the performance audits his office does to improve the functioning of state agencies. The audits have skewered lots of agencies over the years since initiative 901 passed. We don’t see too many emails like this because the auditor tends to (quite appropriately) go after programs that look like are struggling. There are a few suggestions for improvement which sound rational to me, but the report praises Washington for having the sixth highest payment accuracy rate in the nation.

This skewers a long running meme about welfare fraud…

I wanted to let you know that today our Office published a performance audit of the state’s efforts to prevent misuse of electronic benefit transfer cards. These cards provide residents with safety-net benefits such as money to buy food.

Our review found the Department of Social and Health Services is effectively managing several areas vulnerable to fraud, including use of invalid Social Security Numbers, replacement cards and use of benefits at prohibited businesses like casinos. We also made recommendations to improve prevention of card use by ineligible persons, such as increased use of data-matching for identifying high-income clients, discontinuing payments sooner after the death of the client, and scrutinizing out-of-state card use, and emphasizing cost-effective investigations.

The Department is to be commended for its high payment accuracy rate, which is among the best in the nation. Strong controls give people in our state assurance their tax dollars are being properly safeguarded and the people who need help are getting it.

You will find this report on our website here. I hope you find the information useful. We welcome comments and suggestions for future reports. 

Sincerely,

Troy Kelley
Washington State Auditor
www.sao.wa.gov

WA Budget 2015-17: High Degree of Difficulty

Recession Job Recovery graphWhen writing about the budget it’s important to share good news as well as bad. First the good: (it’s short) the revenue forecast picked up a little bit. The bad is that we face one of the most difficult budget cycles of my time in the Legislature, and perhaps worse than we’ve seen in many decades.

The budget is showing strains from the slow recovery from the recession, we are seeing a slew of court cases that require us to spend significant amounts of money, and we are going to have to make significant progress in meeting our constitutional responsibility to fund public education.

Continue reading “WA Budget 2015-17: High Degree of Difficulty”

Teen Births Decline!

birth rates by state - 2012I got email from one of our regular contributors yesterday that wanted us to follow Colorado’s example in reducing teenage births in Washington. Since 2008 teenage births (to women age 15-19) have declined almost 40% in Colorado, an amazing statistic. The website this is from (www.popconnect.org) claims this has saved Colorado $41 million in that time. This is not unreasonable – both states pay hospital costs for births to women below about 250% of the federal poverty level through Medicaid.

Colorado provided IUD and implants to women at no or low cost through 68 family planning clinics. The cost of the birth control is very low per-person (particularly with long-lasting examples like implants and IUDs) compared to the cost of a live birth, let alone one with complications. Colorado nets a pretty significant savings.

I told him I didn’t want to do what Colorado is doing. Why would I do that?

The great story here is that teen birth rates have declined precipitously across the nation. The rate of decline can obscure the relative position of the states. You can see the overall decline in the chart on the right.teen birth rate decline

In the map at the top of the post you can see that the two states are close to the same actual birth rate (the same lavender color). Colorado’s rate of decline was steeper than ours, but they started in a much worse position. Washington  was about 20% lower than Colorado in 2008 and dropped about 30% in the time since. We are still lower than Colorado today.

The teen birth rate (per 1000 women age 15-19) in Washington was 23.9 in 2012. In Colorado it was 25.4. I am not interested in getting to the Colorado level.

The chart with these numbers is available in the most current CDC report on this issue, available at the following link: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr63/nvsr63_04.pdf. The comparison data are on page 20.

 

 

No More Boarding the Mentally Ill in Emergency Rooms

The WA State Supreme Court released a decision this morning on psychiatric boarding in hospitals that basically prohibits the state from doing this. Judge Gonzales’ summary is quite pithy.

GONZALEZ, I.-Washington State’s involuntary treatment act (ITA), chapter 71.05 RCW, authorizes counties to briefly detain those who, “as the result of a mental disorder,” present an imminent risk of harm to themselves or others, or are gravely disabled. RCW 71.05.153(1), .230. The initial brief detention is for the limited purpose of evaluation, stabilization, and treatment, and once someone is detained under the IT A, he or she is entitled to individualized treatment. RCW 71.05.153, .230, .360(2). Pierce County frequently lacks sufficient space in certified evaluation and treatment facilities for all those it involuntarily detains under the ITA. It regularly resorts to temporarily placing those it involuntarily detains in emergency rooms and acute care centers via “single bed certifications” to avoid overcrowding certified facilities. Such overcrowding-driven detentions are often described as “psychiatric boarding.”  Patients psychiatrically boarded in single bed certifications generally receive only emergent care. After 10 involuntarily detained patients moved to dismiss the county’s ITA petitions, a trial judge found that psychiatric boarding is unlawful. We agree and affirm.  (http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/901104.pdf)

There are hundreds of patients in this category statewide and we are going to have to take action to resolve the situation or the courts will release the involuntary commitment petitions on these folks. In general, people in this situation need immediate treatment. Not providing treatment, but keeping them strapped down on gurneys in the hallways of hospitals has always been inhumane, now it is clearly illegal.

During the recession the state budget made significant reductions in mental health spending. We are starting to see the outcomes of this. Yet another category where we most certainly cannot take reductions in order to fund other more visible state services.

Continue reading “No More Boarding the Mentally Ill in Emergency Rooms”

Superintendent Dorn to Policy Center: “You’re Wrong”

Stop Confusing “Education Reform” With “Funding Reform”

The Legislature defined basic education. The Court said, Fund it.

OLYMPIA (March 28, 2014) — Unfortunately, it is once again necessary to respond to Ms. Liv Finne of the Washington Policy Center about the meaning of the Supreme Court’s McCleary v. State of Washington decision. Ms. Finne continues to say the Supreme Court has ordered the State to adopt education reforms and that the Court has not ordered the State to fund its program of education identified in ESHB 2261 and SHB 2776.

Funding Reform

Ms. Finne is wrong. Here is the order issued by the Court in January:

…it is hereby ordered: the State shall submit, no later than April 30, 2014 a complete plan for fully implementing its program of basic education for each school year between now and the 2017-18 school year. This plan must address each of the areas of K-12 education identified in ESHB 2261, as well as the implementation plan called for by SHB 2776, and must include a phase-in schedule for fully funding each of the components of basic education.

Continue reading “Superintendent Dorn to Policy Center: “You’re Wrong””