by Laurel Demkovich
Lawmakers are turning their attention in the final hours of the 2024 session to money.
More specifically, exactly how they want to spend lots of additional dollars in the second half of the state’s two-year budgeting cycle. Agreements for the supplemental operating and transportation budgets are awaiting action before Sine Die on Thursday. Lawmakers approved the capital budget on Wednesday.
The deals finalized this week reflect compromises between the House and Senate who each released their own budget proposals last month.
The big one
A year ago the Legislature approved a $69.8 billion operating budget to fund education, mental health services, health care, public safety and much more through June 2025. On Wednesday, House and Senate budget writers revealed their deal to spend another $2.1 billion in the next 16 months.
About half is for “maintenance level” costs for government activities already underway and the other half is for new policy investments.
There’s also $249 million from the Climate Commitment Act spread around. These are proceeds from sales of emission allowances to the state’s largest polluters. Because of a pending ballot initiative to erase the law, some of the dollars can’t be spent until January when voters’ decision is known.
“I think we’re responding to real people’s needs,” Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said Wednesday.
Education
As usual, education is the biggest bucket of spending in this year’s capital and operating budgets.
The capital budget includes $306 million for school construction. About $333 million for education is set aside in the operating budget, $77.5 million of which is for school transportation and $45 million of which is for the state’s free school meals program.
Amid calls to increase pay for paraeducators, or teacher aides, lawmakers have set aside nearly $72 million to increase school staff salaries, leaving it up to districts to determine how to use it.
Special education spending will increase by $29 million, with a few million of that set aside to train and recruit special education teachers. Most of the funds are for any special education services students might need, such as instructional aides or speech therapy.
In Washington, the state only gives additional special education services money for up to 15% of a district’s population. Lawmakers keep incrementally raising that cap. This year’s no different — under the plan, districts can receive special education funding for up to 16% of their populations.
Lawmakers also increased funding for maintenance, operations and supplies — in other words, how schools keep the lights on — by $21 more per student, totaling $1,504.44 per student for the 2023-2024 school year. The following school year will see a total of $1,533.02 per student. That’s equivalent to about an additional $43.6 million.
Opioids and public safety
The budget uses $51.4 million that the state received in legal settlements with companies involved in the opioid industry to fund addiction treatment medication for incarcerated individuals, outreach and drug use prevention services in K-12 schools and more.
There’s also money to distribute naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medication, to schools, first responders, libraries and colleges, and funding for a fentanyl summit and outreach in tribal communities across the state.
Lawmakers also set aside $400,000 to study police car chases. Money would go toward collecting and reviewing data related to police pursuits and compiling a report with policy recommendations due to the Legislature in June 2025. The report must include information on the duration and reason for pursuits and who was involved. It must also include input from people with experience interacting with law enforcement, including communities of color.
Efforts to recruit and retain Washington State Patrol troopers get a boost in the transportation budget. Additional classes to train new hires are funded. And an annual longevity bonus of $15,000 will be paid to each trooper with at least 26 years of service.
Housing and homelessness
In the operating budget, there is almost $82 million set aside for housing and homelessness programs with most of it going toward grants to local governments.
Much of the funding for new housing is included in the capital budget. It sets aside about $127 million for projects under the Housing Trust Fund, which provides grants for building affordable housing. That money is atop $400 million directed to the trust fund in the budget approved last year.
This year’s trust fund allotment includes $20 million to purchase emergency housing for people moving out of encampments – an ask from Gov. Jay Inslee.
Inslee also secured about $2 million in the transportation budget for the Department of Transportation to continue cleaning up encampments along highways. Both of those items are lower than what Inslee originally asked for to continue the state’s efforts to clear encampments from state-owned rights of way, an effort he said last year is running out of money.
Mental health support
One of the largest pots of new funding is for mental health services. Lawmakers set aside almost $339 million on behavioral health programs, staffing and facilities.
That includes about $140 million for operating the Olympic Heritage Behavioral Health facility that the state acquired last year, and more than $31 million to fund 30 new beds at Western State Hospital and eight new beds at Eastern State Hospital.
The University of Washington Behavioral Health Teaching Facility will receive $20 million, and the University of Washington Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center will receive $60 million.
Pollution powered spending
Washington’s carbon pricing program generated a lot more money in 2023, its first year, than projected. Those receipts total $1.2 billion of which $249 million is in the operating budget, $323 million in the transportation plan and $688 million in the capital budget.
There is $150 million to provide a $200 credit on residential electricity bills of low- and moderate-income families by Sept. 15, 2024. Critics of the climate law have cried foul, saying the checks will arrive as voters consider the November ballot initiative to end the cap-and-trade program.
Money also goes toward purchases of hybrid-electric fire engines, installing electric vehicle charging infrastructure, converting ferries to hybrid-electric power, and expanding air quality monitoring. Development of fusion technology and green hydrogen are also supported.
Green light for Portage Bay project
Lawmakers penciled in $1 billion in additional spending for the state transportation system, of which $324 million comes through the Climate Commitment Act and can’t be spent until Jan. 1.
House and Senate negotiators pour additional dollars into maintenance of roads, preservation of ferries and removal of culverts (AKA fish passage barriers).
Arguably the biggest news is the two chambers found a lane to proceed with replacement of the Portage Bay Bridge on a stretch of State Route 520 in Seattle between the Montlake Bridge interchange and Interstate 5.
Lawmakers had earmarked $1 billion for the project but bids came in roughly $700 million higher. The Washington State Department of Transportation did not award a bid pending lawmakers figuring out how to cover the difference. Initially, the House wanted to carve up the project in pieces and the Senate wanted to power ahead.
This budget taps a few accounts to cover $52 million needed in this budget cycle. As for the remaining amount, it counts on big chunks of dough from increasing tolls on the floating bridge and deferring the contractor’s payment of sales tax until the project is done.
“This budget directs them to accept that bid and move forward,” said Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, chair of the House Transportation Committee.
Republished with permission. Read the original article.
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