Senate Sends Budget To Evenly Split House Plan Leans On Reserves, Has Tax Cut For Homeowners

The Senate approved a budget Sunday night that Democratic sponsors called a “family-friendly” response to Initiative 695 and Republican detractors dismissed as “missed opportunities.”

As expected, the Senate, where Democrats hold the Legislature’s only majority, sent the budget across the Rotunda with only minor changes, putting pressure on the evenly split House to quickly adopt it, amend it or produce an alternative.

GOP leaders criticized the plan for raiding $600 million in reserves rather than attempting to find more dramatic government efficiencies, and offering a $200 property tax cut for homeowners, but not businesses. Still, several Republicans joined Democrats in passing the budget, 32-16.

“My people need it and they expect me to support their needs,” said Sen. Jeanine Long, R-Mill Creek.

Sen. Shirley Winsley, R-Fircrest, said she surveyed her constituents, who told her “I want to keep the money in my wallet and when the state needs it … let me know. In the meantime, spend some of your reserves.”

Senate Majority Leader Sid Snyder, D-Long Beach, said that shortly after voters approved last fall’s $750-million-a-year car tax cut, he was prepared to make dramatic cuts in government services.

“Then, two weeks later, I started hearing, `Don’t punish the voters … don’t punish us because we supported I-695,”’ Snyder said.

“We want you to still do all these things. You’ve got $1 billion, why not spend some of it?”’

The Senate budget essentially retools a $20.3 billion operating budget for the remaining quarter of the state’s two-year budget cycle - a task made more complex by I-695 and the upcoming November elections. It backfills many losses from the initiative, giving money to local governments, transit districts and public health agencies, and shipping $300 million over to transportation. It leaves more than $700 million in the state’s two reserve accounts.

The package was so heavily lobbied that Snyder requested a rare “call of the Senate,” which essentially locks lawmakers in the chamber and prohibits lobbyists and others from sending in notes until the vote is over.

Earlier in the day, the Senate’s budget committee added about $1.4 million in changes. Spokane Sens. Lisa Brown and Jim West added another $450,000 appropriation for the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute.

Brown, a Democrat, said the budget was fair enough that lawmakers could “look our communities, our local governments straight in the eye.”

West, however, voted against the package, arguing that it wrongly treated I-695 as an emergency, and that the tax cut proposal would make compromise in the House difficult.

With only four days remaining before lawmakers are set to adjourn, lawmakers of both parties in the House are still troubled by the property tax cut. Democrats have other plans for the money; Republicans want a tax cut for more than just homeowners.

“They (Democrats) are trying to be so righteous, they’re going to go down in flames,” West said.