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Legislature 2002
Thursday, March 14, 2002
House approves budget compromise Deal limits increase in state worker health care cost BRAD SHANNON AND PATRICK CONDON, THE OLYMPIAN Originally published Thursday, March 14, 2002
OLYMPIA -- House legislators approved a state budget early this morning on a 50-47 vote.
South Sound lawmakers won a key concession on state employee health care benefits on the way to approval of the compromise budget proposal shortly before 1:30 a.m.
An extra $6 million will be shifted to health care benefits, holding state employees' monthly health insurance premiums closer to current levels, said Rep. Sam Hunt, D-Olympia.
He and fellow Olympia Democrat, Rep. Sandra Romero, had threaten to withhold their votes on the budget, which jeopardized a fragile deal between House and Senate Democrats.
"It's the best we can do," Hunt said as an amendment to the $22.5 billion budget was being prepared.
"The unions won," said House Minority Leader Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee.
But House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, said the extra money for benefits was something that negotiators had been trying to accomplish all along.
The budget trims $298 million from the two-year budget approved last June, responding to the state's economic downturn that worsened with the Sept. 11 attacks.
The budget, which raises new revenue with a new lottery game called The Big Game and a 5 percent liquor tax, saves money by cutting state programs and reducing state employment by a net 945 full-time positions statewide.
Education
Kindergarten through 12th grade and community-college employees will get 3.6 percent raises, while state vendors see a 1.5 percent increase and home-care workers gain 25 cents per hour.
"I think many legislators are concerned about the appearance of giving state employees a raise at the same time we are obliterating so many other areas of the budget," explained Sen. Erik Poulsen, D-West Seattle, part of the Senate's budget team.
Rep. Helen Sommers, D-Seattle, the leading House negotiator, said it was the Senate's preference to give no pay increases.
Democratic Sen. Lisa Brown, the budget negotiator in the Senate, has said she would have preferred to hold back teachers' pay increases in order to be fairer to more groups, but Initiative 732 requires higher pay increases for K-12 workers and she found little support among lawmakers to overturn the initiative.
As a compromise with the House, which had sought 2 percent, across-the-board pay raises for state workers, several million dollars will be spent to raise the pay of select job categories that have lagged behind the private sector the most, Sommers said.
That extra pay, equivalent to 0.6 percent pay raises if spread across the board to all state workers, would not be enough for state labor union leaders, however.
Locke weighs in
Gov. Gary Locke said he supports holding down state worker pay.
"I think under these circumstances everybody is being asked to make sacrifices," Locke said.
The budget proposal has many other controversial elements, including use of $450 million in proceeds from bonding 20 percent of the state's future tobacco-settlement money.
The budget also relies on $150 million in Medicaid reimbursements from the federal government, in effect half of the reserve earmarked in the budget.
That's $200 million less of the Medicaid "super-match" than Locke had assumed last December.
The state has no assurance yet it will receive any of the cash before the budget period ends, but Sommers said it is likely the state will get some share of what it is seeking.
State support to counties cut back
The budget also cuts back the state's support for county and city governments that used to rely on motor-vehicle excise taxes until Initiative 695 repealed that tax.
In the compromise, public health programs will continue to get state aid, and hard-hit cities will get an additional $8 million while hard-hit counties get $5 million.
Locally, Mason County would receive $353,000 in the budget year that begins July 1, while the town of Bucoda gets $34,000, Elma gets $4,000, Hoquiam $44,000, McCleary $33,000, Oakville $16,000, Rainier $61,000, and Tenino $15,000.
Besides holding down pay for state workers, the budget makes cuts to almost every program in state government, including K-12 education and programs aiding everyone from the mentally ill to the developmentally disabled.
The roughly $90 million in education cuts include cuts in class-size reduction money and elimination of one of three teacher planning days, which Washington Education Association sharply criticized as a hindrance to school reform efforts.
Caps will hold tuition increases to 16 percent at The Evergreen State College, and 12 percent at South Puget Sound Community College.
Budget highlights
The $22.5 billion budget proposal is $298 million less than what lawmakers approved in June for the 2001-03 budget cycle. It includes more than $600 million in program cuts and revenue increases of about $140 million, and it taps future tobacco-settlement revenue through use of a bond issue. Among its provisions are:
- Elimination of 1,619 jobs statewide, with another 674 added in key areas such as prisons, offender supervision, revenue compliance and higher education. Specific positions to be eliminated would be determined by each agency.
- No cost-of-living increase for state and higher education employees. K-12 and community college workers would see 3.6 percent raises guaranteed by Initiative 732. About $6 million will be set aside for state workers to raise pay in select positions where pay has lagged behind the private sector.
- Health-insurance premiums increase to about $62 per month, up from about $57, with co-payments rising to $15. The state contribution for health care will rise to $482 per month per employee.
- Local government aid will cover less of the loss triggered by Initiative 695's repeal of car taxes. Cities will get $8 million while a few counties get $5 million (Mason County gets $353,000).
- Tuition increases by boards of regents at colleges and universities will raise about half of the $57 million cut from administration costs. Tuition increases will be capped at 16 percent at the two research universities, 14 percent at regional schools such as Evergreen, and 12 percent at community colleges.
- Rate increases of 1.5 percent to vendors that contract with the state for various services, including nursing care.
- Closure of the Mission Creek Youth Camp in Mason County and closure of the McAllister Creek hatchery in Thurston County.
- Cutting money for education centers such as Thurston County Off-Campus School, putting the money instead in a block grant and letting local school districts decide whether to pass the money along.
Total spending for the 2001-03 cycle will increase by about 6.7 percent over the 1999-2001 period, equal to about 3.3 percent a year. It's the smallest two-year increase since the 1970s, according to lawmakers.
On the Web:
- 2002 Supplemental Operating Budget Proposals - Washington State Legislature
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