From Education To Prisons, The Key Issues In The ‘99 Session

Education

Cracking down on truants was a popular idea when the Becca Bill was passed in 1995. But the crackdown hasn’t been cheap, and that’s what lawmakers will hear this session from educators footing the bill.

School districts taking the law seriously and reporting truants to the courts say they’re the ones paying most dearly.

From Spokane to Seattle, they’re repeating those accusing words: unfunded mandate.

Expect to see legislation demanding more state money for the thousands of dollars districts are spending to send vice principals to court on behalf of schools. Expect educators to suggest if that’s not possible, then scratch the law.

Both educators and business leaders are at work on legislation to hold public schools accountable for kids who don’t pass the state’s new assessment tests.

During the past year, students in grades 4 and 7 have failed grandly. Teachers are understandably anxious about a proposal to make them responsible for these scores.

So far, the wording in drafted legislation is fuzzy. It gives the state schools superintendent the right to intervene when schools fail. It just doesn’t say how.

“The Legislature may want to be more specific than that,” said Bob Butts, the superintendent’s policy coordinator.

- Jeanette White

Prisons

The Legislature will look at the impact of ex-felons on the cities where they choose to live after prison.

Some of the proposed legislation is in response to a 1998 Spokesman-Review series, “City of Second Chances,” that found the number of prison inmates released to Spokane County had jumped 84 percent from 1992 to 1997.

Many of the offenders were convicted in other counties, but considered Spokane an affordable place where they could get a low-wage job and start over.

Gov. Gary Locke has asked the Legislature for $14.9 million and new powers to place ex-offenders on community custody and monitor their conduct.

Also, Republicans Lynn Schindler and Larry Sheahan will propose a law requiring felons who’ve completed incarceration to return to the county where they lived when convicted.

The bill will be modeled in part after Oregon’s 1989 “Send Them Home” bill requiring ex-convicts to live at least six months where they were when they committed their crimes.

- Karen Dorn Steele

Transportation

Referendum 49, approved by voters in November, left state coffers fat with transportation money. Over the next six years, legislators get to decide how to divvy up $2.4 billion for transportation projects across the state.

Just how many dollars will roll into Spokane remains uncertain, although state transportation commissioners are recommending the county get at least $120 million for the proposed north-south freeway.

One thing seems almost certain: The state isn’t likely to do much for the sorry condition of the city’s streets. Spokane officials say they need to spend at least $50 million on backlogged road repairs. The governor’s two-year spending plan proposes thinly slicing $100 million in Referendum 49 money and sending it home to the state’s 278 cities and 39 counties.

Meanwhile, lobbyists will try to persuade the governor and the Legislature to give city officials their own ways to raise more money for streets, such as city-imposed gas taxes or license fees.

- Kristina Johnson

Gambling

The Legislature likely won’t do much with gambling this session after weathering enormous changes in tribal and nontribal gaming over the past two years.

In 1997, the Legislature passed a house-banking law that allowed nontribal casinos to play against patrons and keep the winnings in card games like blackjack.

The law caused an explosion in nontribal casinos across the state, particularly in Spokane. Watching the rapid growth, the governor and some legislators said they had no idea the law would lead to so much gambling.

This session, house-banking will likely stay intact. The gambling industry may look for tax cuts and other ways to expand gambling, but the word from Olympia is that a divided Legislature is no place to pass new gambling legislation.

Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Seattle, has said she’s not letting any bill expanding gambling go through the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. As chairwoman, she’s in a position to make good on her word.

As for the Indian tribes, they’ll be watching the Legislature closely this year, but in terms of gambling don’t look for them to do much in the halls of Olympia.

- Tracy Ellig

Salmon

Locke’s proposed 1999-2001 budget calls for spending $201 million - half from state coffers and half from the federal government - on salmon recovery efforts.

That includes $169 million for water quality projects, with most of it going to local governments and private landowners.

Locke wants $22 million to enforce new rules that the Forest Practices Board is expected to enact to protect streams. He wants $6.1 million to hire more wildlife officers and water-pollution regulators.

- Dan Hansen

Health care

Lawmakers will try to heal several wounds in the state’s health care system this year.

The most complicated and pressing problem: carriers pulling out of the individual market - insurance for people who aren’t covered through employers - because they’re losing millions of dollars each year.

Carriers blame the fact that people can get coverage, regardless of pre-existing conditions, at any time, and then drop it when it’s no longer needed. Democrats in the Legislature say people wouldn’t have to do that if carriers quit reducing coverage in other plans.

The state also is facing a $75 million shortfall in its health plan for the working poor, largely because of medical inflation. That problem could be helped by this year’s $323 million tobacco settlement, but there are various other proposals for how that money should be used.

Finally, lawmakers will be working to improve cost and access to health care for rural residents.

- Craig Welch