Legislators End Ugly Session Area Lawmakers Boast They Held Line On Spending, But Spokane Gets Little

Lawmakers appeared headed toward adjournment Thursday night, leaving a lot more dead bills than accomplishments behind.

But a last-minute glitch over the capital budget could send lawmakers into a special session beginning today.

At issue is spending to keep the battleship USS Missouri in Bremerton and a fight over state school trust lands.

Election-year politics soured much of the session, which some lawmakers found so unproductive they argued annual sessions should be outlawed.

Big changes were promised on property rights, juvenile justice, cleaning up the Department of Social and Health Services, and welfare reform. In the end, none of it happened.

All of Spokane’s major requests were skunked in the capital budget. Even a local bill to allow the city the initiative and referendum process got killed.

“It’s criminal, really,” said Sen. Bob McCaslin, R-Spokane Valley, who believes annual sessions should be outlawed. “I haven’t talked to many people who thought this session was worthwhile.”

Certainly Spokane’s mayor wasn’t impressed.

“I was very disappointed for Spokane,” said Mayor Jack Geraghty. “I’m not a person that sets out to blame people. But when you have seasoned legislators come into leadership positions and basically turn their back on the city, it’s a serious issue.”

Local lawmakers were proud of the supplemental and capital budgets, which they said deserve praise for holding the line on spending, even though the state had a surplus of more than $600 million to spend.

“When did you every hear of government that had money and didn’t spend it?” said House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-Wenatchee.

“That’s been our No. 1 priority all along, that we don’t raise spending over last year’s budget. We were able to meet important state needs without increasing spending over the $17.6 billion level that was set last year,” said Rep. Larry Crouse, R-Spokane Valley.

The budget adopted Thursday contained nearly $100 million in education funding, including money to create slots for more than 3,000 students at state colleges and universities, and two-year schools.

More than $54 million was included for a high-tech communications network linking public schools, colleges and universities.

Lawmakers also provided $245,000 to take care of Native American artifacts stored at the Cheney Cowles Museum, and $674,000 for Spokane social-service and street-youth programs, and the Deaconess Regional Center for Child Abuse and Neglect.

Lawmakers cut the business and occupation tax on services by $132 million and were working late into the night to provide a property tax cut as well.

One of the bills being considered would provide a $38 tax cut on a $100,000 home the first year, and $19 a year in subsequent years. The other bill cuts residential property taxes by a flat $79 a year.

Gov. Mike Lowry said he was pleased lawmakers found money in the budget for children’s services, summer jobs programs for youth, community food banks, and other human services.

“Considering the restrictions, we did well on the budget,” he said.

Lowry was critical of the property tax cuts, saying: “I’m not going to draw down the reserve to give people a $1.60-a-month tax cut.”

Lowry vetoed similar legislation last year, and may do so again.

Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn and George Rice, head of the state medical association, gave lawmakers mixed reviews for their work this session on health care.

Senn and Rice praised lawmakers for a disclosure bill adopted Thursday that requires managed-care health plans to inform consumers of incentives in the policy that discourage referrals to specialists.

Rice also praised a bill that puts doctors in charge of deciding if a woman needs more time in the hospital after giving birth. But he said the bill was watered down when requirements that insurers pay for increased time in the hospital was taken out.

The social agenda advanced by conservatives in the House was left in the dust, without a single bill on their wish list passing.

Restrictions on abortion rights, a bill to outlaw same-sex marriage and adoption by gay people, and a measure to restrict minors’ access to pornography all died on the vine.

, DataTimes