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| Senate budget a 'shared pain' |
| By Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles |
| Published: 04/07/2009 |
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Monday, the senate introduced our "operating budget." Our Majority Leader, Sen. Lisa Brown, described it as “shared pain.” And, painful it is. Our budget writers tried to spread the sacrifice so that this budget determines no winners or losers. While as our state reels from a national recession that has led to historic drops in state revenues, we have proposed a balanced budget that unfortunately stalls the progress we have made for our state’s workers, children and communities. We introduced an all-cuts budget, as we know people across our state are cutting their own family budgets. However, I believe that this all-cuts budget cuts too deeply, so I am working with our leadership to present a tax package to the voters to provide some relief from these cuts. The operating budget (some examples) Basic Health Plan The Basic Health Plan is the pay-as-you-go health insurance for Washingtonians who don’t receive health insurance through their employers. We are slashing our Basic Health Plan by 42 percent to maintain coverage for people under 200 percent of the federal poverty level. This cut means that 42,000 middle class Washingtonians will no longer have state-subsidized, affordable health care. I find this very concerning. Those without health insurance continue to face ailments and illness that only get more expensive when they are left with no option but to visit an Emergency Room, whose exorbitant costs are spread over the premiums paid by those with health insurance. Health care has been an increasingly important issue as premiums and drug costs continue an upward spiral that is unmanageable for too many in our state. Education Our children’s education will suffer under this budget. We tried to spare our K-12 system as much as possible. Because education comprises 40 percent of our budget, it is impossible for us to exclude K-12 education from cuts. Thankfully, we have a partner in President Obama, and the proposed senate budget uses $1.36 billion in federal stimulus dollars to mitigate the impact of the state budget reductions. It’s estimated that the net reduction on school district funding will average about 3.5 percent. To put this in context, the budget orders the Senate to reduce our own budget by 8 percent. The biggest cuts are in the suspension of two-voter approved initiatives. In 2000, voters approved I-728 with 72 percent of the vote. This initiative provides extra money to reduce classroom sizes. We also suspended I-732 that requires the state to fund annual salary cost-of-living adjustments for all K-12 school district employees (not just teachers) and select employees of community and technical colleges. We also reduced levy equalization by 75 percent. This money provides additional money to mitigate the impact that local school district levies can have on property poor school districts. I have spent my life advocating for our students, and it is devastating to make any education reductions. Higher education I have been a college instructor for decades and am committed to ensuring affordable access and high quality in our state’s higher education system. Former Gov. Gary Locke described our colleges and universities as our state’s “great equalizer” – I couldn’t agree more. Sadly, unlike our K-12 system, our higher education system is not constitutionally mandated so therefore its funding is not constitutionally protected. Our budget proposes a cut to the entire system by 14 percent – this equates to 10,500 fewer enrollments across our public higher education system. This would have a devastating effect on students who are in university now and on those who hope to attend. I am working on making sure that these drastic cuts do not occur. But as I wrote at the beginning, the budget writers did try to share the pain and part of that meant maximizing federal dollars. While I am deeply concerned about the essential programs that are facing drastic cuts, funding for some very important programs is maintained. Early childhood education While attending college, I worked part-time for a child care center. And for several years having been a single parent of five children, I know just how important our children’s early years are to build the foundation of successful, life-long learners. Our Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) is our state funded pre-school program for families who fall within 110 percent of the federal poverty limit. The Senate’s all-cuts budget reduces this program’s slots by 2 percent for the next two years. Our budget writers mitigated this reduction by only making reductions in locations that are also served by Head Start as the state is expected to receive $10 million in federal head start funding. Broadband funding I’m very pleased that expanding our high-speed Internet structure is partially funded in this proposed budget so that we will be eligible to receive federal funds. For several years now, I have been committed to closing the digital divide that exists in our state between those with high-speed Internet access and those without. My commitment to expanding broadband access reflects my efforts to enhance educational opportunities, access to high paying jobs, health care government, and community economic development – for all our residents. There is little question that broadband access will change our lives in more ways than the invention of the television back in the 1950s. But it’s also about jobs now — when we need them most. It’s estimated that for every direct job involved in deploying broadband, four indirect jobs are created. The construction budget Wednesday we released our construction budget. At $3.3 billion, it’s 29 percent smaller than the 2007-2009 budget and nearly $700 million less than what Gov. Gregoire proposed months ago before revenues fell lower, but we managed to cover our most vital core needs while putting more Washingtonians back to work. This capital budget is smaller for two reasons — our loss of revenue in the recession, and because we transferred $743 million in cash accounts to cover basic needs need in health and public safety in the operating budget. Without that transfer, we would have had to cut the operating budget by the equivalent of the entire Basic Health Program — on top of all our other cuts. The capital budget covers all our K-12 construction commitments and our most critical higher education projects, including three new buildings crucial to our economic future: a molecular engineering building at the University of Washington ($53 million) and a global animal health building and a biomedical sciences facility at Washington State University ($115,686 million). The budget also provides $115 million in bonds and $107 million in federal stimulus money in the form of grants to local government infrastructure projects. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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