Washington politics

Budget includes mental health care, libraries

Of local interest, the Senate budget proposal released Tuesday in Olympia calls for:

•$2.3 million for more acute mental health care in Spokane, as part of an initiative to reduce the number of patients sent to Eastern State Hospital in Medical Lake.

•$8.1 million for local tribes and communities, as part of a drawdown of Lake Roosevelt to provide more water to central Washington irrigators.

•Eight more “home support specialists” for Spokane County families at risk of losing their children.

•At least one more parole officer to work with sex offenders in Spokane County.

•$2 million, split between Spokane and Pierce counties, for court costs due to psychiatric hospital commitment hearings.

•$12 million more for school librarians and libraries statewide. “It is money that will make a difference in the lives of every single child in this state,” predicted Susan McBurney, a Spokane mother who pushed for the money after local cuts.

•$1 million more for a joint YMCA/YWCA facility in Spokane.

•$500,000 for the Airway Heights wastewater treatment plant.

•$300,000 for work on the Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park.

•$1.2 million for Mobius science center.

• $2.4 million toward the $11 million Riverside Avenue extension, redirecting the road around the southern border of Spokane’s Riverpoint campus.

“In relative terms, I think Spokane came out pretty well” in the Senate plan, said Sen. Chris Marr, D-Spokane. It helped, he said, that business and community leaders flew to Olympia earlier this year to pitch a consistent message about local priorities to legislative leaders from throughout the state.

“I don’t think that was lost on anybody,” Marr said.

The Senate budget also would keep more than $1.5 million for Washington State University and the University of Washington to attract “star researchers,” something the House budget plan wants to cut. The House budget was released just two days after WSU made a job offer to a “world class” microbiologist from Denmark, leaving school officials sweating.

“Sometimes there are some opportunities you can’t let slip by,” said Senate budget chairwoman Margarita Prentice, D-Renton.

But unlike the House, the Senate construction budget doesn’t include $2 million to start design work on a new veterinary medical research building. The school is about to announce a $25 million private donation for animal health work, WSU’s Larry Ganders told lawmakers Tuesday, and some state money would help. Prentice said lawmakers would try.

Unlike the House plan, the Senate budget doesn’t include any construction money for a locally proposed armed forces and aerospace museum.

Prentice also said she’s opposed to a House bill that would steer millions of dollars in sales tax generated by the work on the North Spokane Corridor back into the project. She said that would take money away from the state’s general fund, which pays for education, health care, prisons and other critical costs.

“It’s simply not going to happen,” she said.