OLYMPIA -- The state budget office is questioning some parts of the 2013-15 operating budget proposal released earlier this week by the leaders of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

The budget uses some assumptions that may not be legal, and others that don't have enough information to say whether they are realistic, David Schumacher, director of the Office of Financial Management, said in a letter to Committee Chairman Andy Hill, R-Redmond, and Sen. Jim Hargrove of Hoquiam, the ranking Democrat. 

"There are significant concerns with the structure of this budget, such as reductions to local government programs and our state's safety net," Schumacher says at the top of a four-page list of questions about proposed decisions on education, health and  human services, natural resources, general government and "non-specific savings."

The committee passed the budget on Thursday and moved it to the Senate, where it could come up for a debate this afternoon.

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