House budget proposal balanced, but cuts deep

“Short-term strategy to preserve the long-term values of our state”

March 31, 2009

OLYMPIA – As she released her 2009-2011 Operating Budget proposal today, House Ways and Means Chair Kelli Linville (D-Bellingham) said her committee members “rose to the challenge presented by this global recession.”

“This is not the budget we’d all hoped to offer today,” said Linville. “However it reflects the reality of the economic situation we’re in today.”

“We worked to cushion the blow to our families and businesses,” she said. “We fully-fund Apple Health for kids, protect the safety net for our most vulnerable citizens, and prioritize basic education.”

“We have a great partner in the White House,” said Rep. Mark Ericks (D- Bothell), vice-chair of Ways and Means. “The federal recovery dollars sent by President Obama allowed us to protect investments in education and health care we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Yes, they are one-time dollars, but they allowed us to buy some time for the kids in our state while our economy recovers.”

However, the House proposal makes reductions in every area of the budget.

“Nothing was totally spared,” said Linville. “We tried to be surgical about the cuts, but the sheer size of the hole forced us to make very tough decisions.”

Total hard cuts to the budget amount to about $4.0 billion, and among them are:
• Health and human services $1.5 billion
• K-12 education $1 billion
• Higher education $683 million
• Natural resources $107 million
• Other government $135 million
• Pensions $432 million

“I want to stress that these cuts, as painful as they are, would have been much, much deeper if not for the federal economic recovery package,” Linville said. “This is a short-term strategy to protect the long-term values of our state.”
Joining Linville and Ericks at the budget rollout were the chairs of the three House Appropriations Committees, who were key in developing large sections of the proposal.

Key education priorities in the budget include protecting ECEAP slots for young children, keeping as many teachers in the classrooms as we can, and providing flexibility to colleges and universities so they can continue serving as many students as possible.

“We’ve invested so much in our education system – training our teachers, building an incredible college system, putting more children into quality early learning programs, and more,” said Rep. Kathy Haigh (D-Shelton), chair of the House Education Appropriations Committee. “For me, the most critical investments are those that affect our students directly. Those are the investments we tried to protect.”

By distributing cuts equally, the Health & Human Services budget includes protection for our most vulnerable populations. This includes reducing, but not eliminating, the General Assistance – Unemployable (GA-U) program and the Basic Health Plan.

“We’ve undergone an extremely difficult task, and none of us are completely satisfied with the results,” said Rep. Eric Pettigrew (D-Seattle), chair of the House Health & Human Services Appropriations Committee. “We’ve done the best we can with what we have, without neglecting our low-income, youth, elderly, People with disabilities, and additional at-risk populations.”

The House General Government Appropriations Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Jeannie Darneille (D-Tacoma), scrubbed the budgets of more than 80 state agencies to find budget cuts that are proposed in the House Budget.

“We put in countless hours to locate budget savings that preserve as many front-line services as possible, protect struggling families, and that continue key investments to promote good jobs and economic development,” Darneille said. “We’ve made a good start, but we need to keep working to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of every dollar spent.”

Linville plans to spend the next two years assessing the systems that deliver our most important services and look for more ways to modernize and streamline.

“Nobody knows for sure when the economy will turn around,” she said, “but we are looking ahead two years, four years, even six years down the road. My goal is to develop a long-term plan for delivery of quality, sustainable services.”