Special session likely to finish budget, tax increase

OLYMPIA — As the hours passed Wednesday, more and more state lawmakers became less and less certain they will finish on time tonight.

The stroke of midnight will mark the end of the constitutionally prescribed 60 days for the 2010 legislative session.

If lawmakers are not done, well, they could enter overtime Friday or head home to be summoned back days or weeks from now.

Gov. Chris Gregoire will huddle with legislative leaders, learn how close or far they are from completing their tasks and then decide.

Around noon Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said it looked to her as if a “fairly quick” extra session will be needed.

“I don’t want to start predicting it’s one day or something more,” she said. “We’re feeling good. We keep doing as much as we can do until we’re done.”

The hang-up is how to erase the $2.8 billion deficit in the 16 remaining months of the state budget.

Democrats, as the majority in the Senate and House, are trying to figure it out without any input from Republicans. There are significant differences between the two chambers on the dollar amount of cuts to make, taxes to raise, reserves to tap and funds to snatch up through transfers in order to plug the hole.

On taxes alone, the House and Senate are $200 million apart and the big stickler is the Senate wants a sales tax hike and the House doesn’t.

Even if agreement is reached, hours are needed to print up the final product almost certainly imperiling an on-time finish.

Frustrated Republicans are resigned to a special session of unknown duration.

“I’m feeling it might not be until next week,” Rep. Dan Kristiansen, R-Snohomish, exhaustion in his voice, said Wednesday.

The sales tax is the linchpin, he said.

“Both of them are saying they’re not going to budge, and you’re waiting for one of them to blink,” he said.

Sen. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens, is expecting extra time.

“We are not going to get out of here,” he said. “We have to get it right, and right now we don’t have it right.”

Special sessions are not all that rare in Washington history.

In 2007, after the state Supreme Court tossed out a cap on property tax increases, lawmakers returned for one day to reinstate the limit.

In 2003, legislators didn’t have a budget deal when the 105-day session ended. They went home for two weeks then returned for a full 30-day session. Two years before that legislators spent 58 days in special session, wrapping it up in late July.

The last 60-day session to run long was 2000. Then, Gov. Gary Locke kept legislators in Olympia and the overtime lasted 29 days. That wasn’t quite enough as they needed three more in a second overtime.

Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, served through all of those.

“I would hope we get enough done in the next couple days so it won’t be a long one. I’d like to see us be done by Friday,” she said.

Special sessions cost taxpayers about $18,000 a day with roughly $12,000 for the House and $6,000 for the Senate. Much of the money is for the $90-a-day per diem legislators would receive.

A Republican senator introduced a bill Wednesday to block per diem payments.

“Only government would force the people to pay for ‘overtime’ while it figures out how much more to tax them, but that’s exactly what will happen if the majority party hasn’t agreed on a tax package by the end of the regular session tomorrow,” said Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, the bill’s sponsor.

Turns out, the House of Representatives doesn’t have money in its reserves and will need to pare spending elsewhere to cover the per diem for its 98 members. Like a state agency, the Legislature’s day-to-day operations are funded through the state budget. Separate allotments are made to the House and Senate to pay salaries of lawmakers, their employees and each chamber’s administrative personnel. Funding has been cut, as with other agencies, and the House contingency fund is not sufficient to cover an extended extra session

“For every day of special session, that’s $12,000 we have to reduce elsewhere in the budget during the interim,” said Bernard Dean, deputy chief clerk of the House of Representatives.

While the House is short on money, representatives may be short on options for food.

One of two privately operated cafeterias on the Capitol Campus will close as scheduled tonight.

The House dining room may be locked up, too. A decision on that facility will be made once it’s clear when a special session might start and how long it might last.

Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com