Before they get too much deeper into the session, state legislators would do themselves and their constituents a favor by sitting down with a cup of coffee, a highlighter and a copy of a new report, “Opportunity Washington: Priorities for Shared Prosperity.” Actually, we’d put it on the recommended reading list for city, county, school and business leaders and anyone else with an interest in the economic health of Snohomish County, which ought to cover just about everyone.
The report, compiled by the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy — whose members include the Association of Washington Business, Washington Roundtable and Economic Alliance Snohomish County — is an attempt to provide a roadmap for the state regarding education and workforce development, transportation and job creation that references existing information as well as perspectives that were gathered during 12 “listening” sessions last year in each corner of the state, said the AWB’s Chris Johnson.
The report, which is available at www.opportunitywa.org, is not intended as a legislative agenda but more of a reference tool for long-term decision-making with specific benchmarks — some of them already outlined by the Roundtable folks — that can be used to measure progress.
The current state of the state, as outlined in the report, finds plenty of opportunities for improvement. Washington ranks 32nd in the nation for high school graduation rate, 33rd for bachelor’s degrees per capita in science, technology, engineering and math and 38th for bachelor’s degrees awarded per capita. Regarding transportation, the state ranks 36th for road conditions, 38th for average statewide commute times and 41st for bridge conditions. And for business climate and jobs, while the state ranks 13th for private-sector job growth, it falls to 33rd for business tax burden, 44th for unemployment insurance tax rates and 50th for benefits paid for workers’ compensation.
To begin moving up from those rankings, the report recommends that the state:
Achieve by improving access and increasing investment in education from pre-school through college, particularly in the STEM fields, to ensure that at each step students are prepared for the next.
Connect with increased investment to preserve and maintain the state’s roads and bridges, improve freight mobility and connections among roads, rails and ports and plan regionally to prioritize and fund local transportation needs.
Employ by streamlining regulations, supporting policies that encourage business investment and job growth and reforming the state’s tax system, specifically its reliance on the business and occupation tax, which is as outdated as the sales tax is regressive.
To look around us in Snohomish and King counties, with an economic recovery in full swing, some might question the urgency the report reflects. But that recovery isn’t broadly shared in the state and is still vulnerable, specifically if the needs above are not addressed. In the year between September 2013 and September 2014, Johnson said, while King County gained 44,000 jobs and the rest of the state added 33,000, twelve counties actually reported a loss of jobs. Just as your financial adviser recommends diversifying your 401(k), the state, to help it weather future downturns, needs a broad-based recovery.
There will be disagreements in the details, especially regarding how to ensure results from the money spent on education, how to fund necessary transportation improvements, how to fairly reform our tax system and how to rewrite regulations that protect the things we value while not swamping business. But reaching agreement on those tasks starts with finding common ground in our goals to achieve, connect and employ.
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