Lawmakers Pass Operating Budget
When lawmakers broke out the buttons Wednesday declaring “I hate special sessions,” chances for adjournment started looking good.
Late Wednesday, lawmakers passed a $17.6 billion state operating budget for the coming biennium. But they still were hung up on a transportation budget and a capital budget, so they expected to reconvene to finish work today.
Last-minute additions to the operating budget included $100,000 for a study to create a master plan for Mount Spokane State Park and $195,000 for maintenance and operation at Spokane’s higher-education park.
The budget also assumes tax cuts worth more than $500 million.
Gov. Mike Lowry scolded lawmakers over the size of the tax cut, which he warned the state can’t afford. “Anybody got a tax they want cut?” He cracked to a group of reporters in a hallway of the capitol. “Hey forget about millions, lets start talking about billions.”
Lowry can veto any of the cuts, but so far has not said he will.
The biggest beneficiaries of the tax cut package are businesses.
Lawmakers eliminated the sales tax on new plants and equipment for manufacturers. They also cut the 1993 increase in the business and occupation tax by 50 percent.
The state share of the property tax also was cut by 5 percent, which will save the average homeowner about $30 a year.
The budget provides a 4 percent cost of living increase for all state employees and teachers.
It also will require some workers to pay higher health benefit copayments. However, lawmakers dropped a proposal to require workers to pay $32 toward their monthly health premiums.
The capital budget still under consideration includes $4 million for the Pacific Science Center. The money will be split between the science center in Seattle and one planned for Spokane. The budget does not specify how.
More than $3 million also was included for a second academic building at the Riverpoint Campus.
But no money was provided for expansion of the Cheney Cowles Museum or consolidation of state offices in a new building in Spokane.
A testy Gov. Lowry called lawmakers into a second special session first thing Wednesday morning.
Lawmakers, scruffy and punchy from lack of sleep, were in no mood to argue. They had been up past midnight Tuesday, slugging it out over the budget.
They spent a weary, dream-like day re-passing all the bills they had passed the day before. Because they were in a second special session, all work left over from the day before had to be repeated.
The Senate passed the budget for the third time. The House passed a slew of tax cut bills for what one member calculated to be the sixth time this session.