House Attempts To Stop Flow Of Goodies House Republican Budget Includes No Money For New Building Projects

Ask Dale Foreman how much he’s snared in the capital budget for improvements to his town’s convention center, and the powerful House Majority Leader joins the tip of his index finger to his thumb.

Meaning: None, zip, zero, says the man with the clout to deliver the whole enchilada.

House Republicans will reveal a supplemental capital budget Wednesday that includes no money for new projects anywhere in the state, said Foreman, R-Wenatchee.

“This really is a test,” said Foreman. “What do you do when you have the ability to do special favors for a fortunate few?

“That is the politics of the past. We are very aware this is a new approach. We are going to spend your money like it’s our own.”

In Spokane, that means the budget very likely will not include $750,000 requested by the city to study expansion of the Convention Center.

A $1.2 million expansion of the Cheney Cowles Museum and $1.2 million in improvements to the Riverpoint campus will probably also go begging.

“If you give money to a Spokane Cheney Cowles or a convention center, then how do you say no to anyone else,” Foreman asked.

Rep. Barry Sehlin, R-Oak Harbor, chairman of the House Capital Budget Committee, said the budget represents a new approach: exercising discipline to hold the line on spending.

“Every year the question is who got what for their district. The news this year is there’s no news. The answer is the same for everyone.”

As far as House leaders are concerned, it is no. Even in an election year.

Supplemental budgets are supposed to be just that, Foreman and Sehlin said: opportunities to respond to crises that came up since the Legislature last met, such as damage from a flood or fire.

Or there may be one-time opportunities that truly won’t be there during the long legislative session when lawmakers write the biennial budget.

Other than that, the supplemental budget drafters should stick to fine tuning, and wait until the biennial budget to consider new projects, Sehlin said.

Sen. Nita Rinehart, D-Seattle, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, criticized the House approach.

“It’s governing by slogans and sound bites.

“The public wants us to be reasonable with their money. But they don’t want us to be silly when there are real needs.”

Rep. Helen Sommers, D-Seattle, a former chairman of the House Capital Budget Committee, called the House approach rigid.

“There are investments that should be made.” Of GOP lawmakers, she said: “Their horizons are the shortest I have ever observed. Skepticism is healthy. But this is extreme. Where is the balance, where is the judgment?”

Sen. Bob McCaslin, R-Spokane, called the House position unfair, given the Legislature just sprang for a new stadium for the Mariners.

“Anyone who voted for that ought to be ashamed at now saying no to anyone. It’s terribly unfair.”

Backers of Spokane projects were glum.

Glenn Mason, director of the Cheney Cowles Museum, said the museum carefully reworked its proposal from the previous year, at the request of lawmakers, to present it again this year.

“We downsized. We scaled back. We have gone to a lot of effort and a lot of work, responding to lawmakers who are now towing an even harder line.

“If they say it’s a good project but they are not funding it anyway, what are we supposed to do with that?”

Terry Novak, executive director of Spokane’s Joint Center for Higher Education, called the House approach too simple.

“There are projects that aren’t emergencies but they are still damn good things to do.”

How the House budget will play with the voters is not clear: It’s one thing to say no when lawmakers can’t afford to say yes, and quite another to say no even when they don’t have to.

Lower interest rates provide an additional $100 million to $150 million in borrowing capacity.

Nonetheless, House leaders say they won’t run up the state’s credit card any further.

“The voters said they want less spending,” said Sehlin. This isn’t a matter of deciding who gets what piece of the pie. We are deciding not to eat the whole thing.”

The supplemental budget makes changes to the two-year budget adopted last session by lawmakers. The capital budget pays for construction projects of all kinds.

It’s paid for largely by the sale of bonds, which put taxpayers in debt.

The debt is paid off over many years in annual payments made from the state operating budget. The more the state borrows, the bigger the annual payments.

Every year for the past 10 years, payments on the state debt have gone up, rising at twice the rate of state spending.

Debt service payments are so big by now they are the state’s third largest expenditure after K-12 education and the Department of Social and Health Services.

If House leaders hold the line on borrowing this year, debt costs in next year’s operating budget will level off for the first time in a decade.

The House budget will pose a challenge for the negotiating process, in which Senate members trade projects with the House until a compromise budget is reached.

But when one side doesn’t want anything, there’s no trading currency. And House leaders say they don’t plan to back down.

“I don’t think we are going to give in,” said Sehlin. “It’s a corner I intended to paint us in, and a corner I want to be in.

“We’ll see how the public responds.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo