Editorial: Add a touch of reform to finish state budget work

With Gov. Chris Gregoire and House Democrats having taken their swings at a supplemental budget, Senate Democrats stepped up to the plate Tuesday. They got enough wood on the ball to avoid strike three.

They made contact on education. Their proposal is the first that does not cut funding for either K-12 or higher education. That’s particularly good news for the state’s universities, which have been cannibalized in recent legislative sessions. About $32 million is set aside for reducing kindergarten class sizes in the state’s poorest areas, but expansion of all-day kindergarten to all schools is unmentioned.

Nor does their budget finish off Washington’s Basic Health program, a national model that has been starved down to life support status. The Disability Lifeline that supports some of Washington’s most desperately disabled adults also escapes harm.

There are other worthwhile components: Consolidation of school health insurance programs, and reduced state contributions toward insurance for state employees; termination of two unnecessary tax exemptions; and a resolution that could lead to amending the Washington Constitution to require four-year balanced budgeting.

Had that amendment been in place today, the Democrats – Senate, House and governor – could not find relief in one element common to all three budgets: delaying payments to school districts by one day, and thereby pushing a sizable chunk of this biennium’s $1 billion deficit into the next budget cycle.

The Senate budget delays $330 million in payments. To paper over the move, the delay would be made permanent. It would be as if the 2012 payment never happened and never will. Washington resorted to so-called 25th-month budgeting in the 1970s, and it took a decade to get it off the books.

Another big “savings” comes from a $231 million drawdown of reserves – to a razor-thin cushion. Also, unspent money is booked, various accounts are rejiggered and the overfunded police and fire pension plans are consolidated, negating a $74 million payment.

Not included: Republican proposals that would expand hybrid pension plans that reduce state contributions and eliminate early retirement benefits for new state hires, steps that would yield little immediate savings but $2.3 billion down the line. Instead, money is appropriated to study pension issues.

Of special concern in Eastern Washington: Two hospitals considered critical access would lose that status and the enriched Medicaid payments that help them keep their doors open.

At the end of last year’s legislative session, it was the Senate Democrats and Republicans who produced a bipartisan budget that got everybody out of Olympia, if not out from under Washington’s stubborn money problems. The Democrats do not have the votes to pass the proposal unveiled Tuesday, so another episode of compromise is likely.

A change in stance regarding reform, and the next swing might find the sweet spot that restores Washington’s financial stability.