Your Senator's Perspective - Special session on horizon

On the Monday after Thanksgiving I will be back at the Capitol to begin a “special” session of the Legislature. I’ve been through plenty of these in 19 years, and most of them aren’t all that special – they tend to happen only because the Legislature failed to get its work done in the time allotted by the state constitution for regular legislative sessions (105 days in odd-numbered years, 60 days in even-numbered years).

Of course, some of the special sessions have been more deserving of the name. In November 2007, for example, we met for one day to reinstate the 1 percent property-tax cap created by Initiative 747, shortly after that law had been struck down by the state Supreme Court. And just last December we met for a day to adopt hundreds of millions of dollars in spending reductions – that paved the way for the bipartisan budget negotiations that took up much of my legislative time from January through May.

The special session that begins Nov. 28 was called to address a budget gap that is in the neighborhood of $2 billion, so it won’t be over in a day, probably not in a week or two. However, I don’t expect it will last the full 30 days available, as that would include Christmas. Regardless, I hope whatever time the special session takes is well spent, as we have some important decisions to make.

Speaking of important decisions, the voters of our state made several. Please keep reading for a brief summary of what the general election results mean, especially to the state’s finances.

Election results affect both sides of budget equation

Statewide offices typically are filled in even-numbered years (the exception being unexpired terms, such as the 4th Legislative District Senate seat in Spokane Valley), so elections in odd-numbered years typically focus on city and county offices and measures. But statewide measures can be put on the ballot in any year by the Legislature or the citizens, and yesterday’s election had five. For more detail see a report from Washington State Wire; here’s a quick rundown:

Initiative 1183 – Legislation to privatize liquor sales in Washington had gone nowhere in recent years; voters settled the issue yesterday by easily passing this measure to take the state out of the business of selling liquor.

Only time will tell what this change means for public safety; however, I expect this measure will indeed result in more revenue for the state. The question is how much -- one published estimate was for $164 million more over the first six years – but again, we’ll wait and see.

Initiative 1163 – This initiative received strong voter approval, like I-1183, but hits the spending side of the budget instead.

It’s the second ballot measure in the past few years having to do with training for home health-care workers, and like Initiative 1029 in 2008, doesn’t specify a source of revenue (which is why the Legislature didn’t supply the funding for I-1029). As the governor even commented last night, “paying for this training will require new sources of revenue, or cuts to other essential programs.”

Initiative 1125 – This measure has to do with tolling for transportation projects, so it’s unlikely to have a direct effect within the 9th District. Also, as of now it’s too close to call whether this will pass.

Senate Joint Resolutions 8205 and 8206 – These measures, which passed easily, were put on the ballot by the Legislature as proposed amendments to the state constitution. SJR 8205 does away with a long-standing inconsistency in the state constitution about the residency requirements for voters. SJR 8206, meanwhile, is a positive step from a budget standpoint, for it strengthens the state’s rainy-day fund. Should the state again see “extraordinary” revenue growth as it did a few years ago, the Legislature would be required to set a larger portion of that revenue aside. Had SJR 8206 been in place back then, our financial situation would be much better now.

Idaho high court says stormwater fee is really a tax

Week before last I shared a letter that I and my two House seatmates sent to the director of our state Department of Ecology. In it we pointed out how cities and counties in our part of the state are inappropriately burdened by Ecology’s effort to impose stormwater-runoff regulations statewide, regardless of rainfall patterns – and we concluded by urging him to pull the plug on that approach.

Clarkston is among the cities that have found themselves on the wrong end of Ecology’s crusade, so it was with great interest this morning that I read a ruling filed Monday by the Idaho Supreme Court about the stormwater fee imposed by the city of Lewiston, just across the state line.

Five entities – the Lewiston School District, Lewis-Clark State College, Nez Perce County, the Port of Lewiston and the Lewiston Orchards Irrigation District – filed suit against the city, charging that the fee was really a tax and therefore could only be authorized by the Idaho Legislature.

Here’s what the justices concluded:

“This Court finds that the first step of the analysis leads to the conclusion that the assessment is a tax, not a regulatory fee. As per the second step, it is clear that the revenue to be collected from the stormwater utility fee has no rational relationship to a regulatory purpose because the stormwater fee is a tax. The stormwater fee is used to generate funds for the non-regulatory function of repairing, maintaining, and expanding the City’s preexisting stormwater system and streets under Brewster. Ordinance 4512 is, therefore, an unauthorized tax intended to free-up the City’s general revenues. It is for the Idaho Legislature to authorize such a tax.”

I am sending a copy of the Idaho decision to Ecology. And, although I haven’t received a response from the agency director to our letter of week before last, I’m hearing through the grapevine that our words have gotten Ecology’s attention.

In the meantime, the feedback from 9th District residents who saw our letter included a message from the owner of a prominent Pullman business. He told me how he had wanted to pave a gravel lot that had been in place for nearly 40 years, and already had storm drains installed, but dropped the asphalt idea after being advised to undertake a costly study due to stormwater concerns. He ended his email to me with this:

“$50,000 of commerce stopped because of undue regulation!! This is truly an example of why growth, revenue, and the state’s economy is sliding backwards. Thanks for asking my thoughts. I’m a proud Pullman resident, life time Washington state resident, and US citizen that needs to say enough is enough. Feel free to share this.”

Keep the comments coming! I understand the concern about polluted stormwater running off into our waterways, but I also understand that there has to be rain before there can be runoff. It’s ridiculous and unfair for Ecology to treat our part of the state as though it gets as much rain as western Washington, and I’ll continue to press that point.

Has governor set the stage for a tax package?

After the Sept. 15 state revenue forecast confirmed the widening gap between spending and revenue, the governor said she would go public with budget-cutting ideas in late October, ahead of the special legislative session. Meanwhile, members of the majority party had responded to the forecast by saying publicly they would pursue a package of new revenue. Typically, that’s code for higher taxes.

Many people put two and two together and expected the governor’s list (which was released late last month) would include some highly dramatic cuts that would play into a push to put a tax-raising measure before voters.

Sure enough, after describing her “guiding principles” – obvious things like supporting K-12 education and protecting vulnerable citizens and preserving public safety – here’s what the governor chose to highlight in the cover letter she sent to legislators with her list:

“If I could believe that every program or service the state provides is being run as efficiently as possible, right now, I might be more inclined to consider some of the governor’s more dramatic cuts. But if the state agency that agreed to drop almost $20,000 on hiring a consultant to help with an “executive retreat” is any example (as detailed in my latest edition of “Watching Your Tax Dollars”), “then there’s some housecleaning in order before anyone talks seriously about reducing support for the 234 school districts (out of 295) that receive equalization dollars.”

The governor deserves credit for sharing her budget-cutting ideas and promising to produce a budget proposal before we go into the special session. I know from my experience as a budget negotiator that it’s no simple undertaking.

However, it’s too bad her list is heavy on proposals that conveniently lend themselves to those who want to campaign for higher taxes, and light on the sort of savings that come from reforming services and programs.

If a tax package was to go on the ballot before the 2012 legislative session ends in mid-March, it would have to be assembled and approved (by a simple majority) quickly. That’s because it takes about 10 weeks for the Secretary of State’s office to get a statewide election together.

For instance, to make the already-scheduled Feb. 14 election a tax package would have to be approved by Dec. 2, which is just five days into the special session – a tall order.

Senate already preparing for special session

The Senate is taking a two-track approach to get ready for the budget discussions that will be the focus of the upcoming special session.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee on which I serve has already had two work sessions, with the topics including an update on the state’s overall budget situation and budget reduction options submitted by the Department of Social and Health Services, the Health Care Authority and the Department of Corrections. The next Ways and Means meeting, which focuses on higher education, will take place Nov. 14.

In the meantime, the Senate budget chairman and the Senate Republican budget leader, Joe Zarelli, agreed on a bipartisan approach for coming up with short- and long-term ideas aimed at putting the budget back on stable footing.

This approach has majority and minority members of key Senate policy committees working together to develop three sets of recommendations: changes that will result in spending reductions of 5, 10 and 15 percent in their policy areas; reforms that will make delivering services more efficient and less costly over the long term; and agency programs or services that might benefit from performance audits.

If there is to be bipartisan support for closing the budget gap, reforms will need to be a centerpiece of the Senate approach. That’s consistent with what the Legislature accomplished earlier this year, when reforms – such as more choice for injured workers, a refocusing of the Basic Health Plan and disability lifeline, and clamping down on fraud and abuse involving food and cash assistance to low-income people – were the key to adopting the bipartisan budget I helped negotiate.

Latest on redistricting process

The Redistricting Commission met in Olympia last month to announce it had pared the four proposed legislative district maps to two.

Under the Ceis-Foster plan the 9th District would shrink in terms of area and move into Benton County, take in more of Franklin County and keep a tiny bit of Adams (Othello). Much of what is now our district would become part of the 16th District. Under the Gorton-Huff plan the boundaries would be much closer to today’s, the major exceptions being that the 9th District would lose Columbia County to the 16th District and the portion of Spokane County it now contains to the 3rd District.

The commission is required to present final legislative and congressional maps by the end of this year. To be final, they must be approved by three of the four voting commission members. The plan becomes final unless it is amended by the Legislature within 30 days after the beginning of the next regular or special legislative session.