Governor signs $45 billion budget

Wed., May 16, 2007

David Ammons Associated Press

Highlights

“Budget: The $33.4 billion two-year operating budget will plow more than $1 billion into schools, expand college enrollment by 9,700 students, cover 39,000 more kids in health care and begin the $8 billion task of cleaning up Puget Sound pollution. The budget leaves $724 million unspent, including $134 million earmarked for the hard-to-tap "rainy day" account.

“Construction: The governor signed a $4.3 billion state construction budget that passed the Legislature almost unanimously.

The plan includes $880 million to help local school districts build new schools, $158 million for prisons, $100 million for the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program, $226 million for Puget Sound cleanup and salmon recovery, $1.1 billion for higher education buildings, and authorization for a new $110 million State Heritage Center.

“Transportation: Gregoire agreed to a $7.5 billion highway budget that deals with a $2 billion cost overrun for 432 projects that are planned over the next 16 years.

OLYMPIA – Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire on Tuesday authorized spending more than $45 billion to run state government, build highways and finance a construction boom over the next two years.

The main $33 billion operating budget uses a major portion of the state’s tax surplus to boost schools, health care, environmental protection and higher education.

An upbeat Gregoire called the budget “both compassionate and smart,” and said Olympia “kept the focus on our future demands and kept our commitments to the needs of all Washington families,” particularly in the area of education.

The plan, almost exclusively the work of the Democratic governor and the majority Democrats in the House and Senate, spends heavily from the state’s projected $2.2 billion surplus.

It leaves $724 million unspent, part of it in a hard-to-tap “rainy day” account that lawmakers are asking voters to create this fall. The fund, essentially a forced savings account of 1 percent per year, was the only aspect of the budget that drew support from minority Republicans on Tuesday.

GOP lawmakers believe Democrats overspent and set the stage for a deficit in a few years. Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, and Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Olympia, the Legislature’s top GOP budget leaders, posed with the governor when she signed a “rainy day” bill that will implement the constitutional amendment voters are being asked to approve. They complimented her and other Democrats for pushing through an idea that Republicans have promoted for years, but then promptly left before she signed the budget they consider bloated.

Gregoire also signed a $4.3 billion construction budget that spends heavily on school and college construction.

She also approved a $7.5 billion highway budget. It includes new money to get more than 400 highway projects back on schedule after the state covers nearly $2 billion in cost overruns, primarily due to soaring material prices.

Gregoire said voters want Olympia to improve public education, expand access to affordable health coverage, and to help create family-wage jobs. The three new budgets, which take effect July 1, make major progress in each area, as well as in public safety, better roads, new construction and community projects, and environmental protection, such as cleanup of Puget Sound, she said.

“This budget is an investment in the future of our state,” she said.

Gregoire crowed about good economic news released a few hours earlier – the lowest state unemployment rate in modern times, 4.4 percent. The state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council also has reported that tax collections are up $141 million above previous estimates.

Tuesday was the deadline for the governor to sign the 500-plus bills that lawmakers passed in their 105-day session. She saved some of the biggest for last.