OLYMPIA — State lawmakers are in for a brutal special session this holiday season as they debate cuts to schools, social services and health care to close another multibillion-dollar budget shortfall.
Gov. Chris Gregoire said Thursday she will call them back Nov. 28 — four days after Thanks
giving — and push them to approve up to $2 billion in spending cuts before Christmas.
Next month, she intends to give legislative budget writers a “road map” of where cuts might be made in spending on public schools, social services and corrections.
“There will be more cuts that will affect our vulnerable citizens. There will be more cuts in our corrections systems. There will be more cuts in our public schools, colleges and universities,” she predicted.
“It is simply unavoidable,” she continued. “We are going to have to admit there are things we simply as a state can no longer do.”
On the chopping block will be programs offering subsidized health insurance to the poor, health care for immigrant children and prescription drug coverage for adults.
Money for levy equalization in public schools might be reduced, she said, and some felons convicted of violent crimes might be monitored in the community for shorter periods.
“Our work will be brutal. The work the Legislature will face will be brutal as well,” Gregoire said.
This will be the Legislature’s second emergency session this year focused on balancing the budget for state spending through June 30, 2013.
Lawmakers pared $4.6 billion before approving a $32.2 billion spending plan in the May special session. That budget even had reserves. But two consecutive forecasts of declining tax collections — the latest last week — have wiped out those reserves and carved a new crater of nearly $1.3 billion crater.
Gregoire and lawmakers in both parties say they view the hole as nearer $2 billion, since they all want to restore a rainy day fund.
Also, they anticipate that a Nov. 17 revenue forecast will bring more bad news and, maybe, an even deeper hole to fill.
Legislative leaders anticipated the special session following last week’s dire revenue forecast.
While Democratic and Republican leaders insisted Thursday they are willing to work together, the issue of revenue is a fissure that threatens to grow into an insurmountable chasm.
Gregoire said she’ll give them a plan that makes up the difference solely with less spending and said it’s “absolutely premature” to talk about new or higher taxes or asking voters to pass a tax increase of any sort.
“Somebody will have to show me $2 billion in tax loopholes that I could get passed in the Legislature,” she said. “Frankly, somebody will have to show me $2 million that I could get passed in the Legislature and in the court of public opinion.”
Some Democrats are pushing the ballot measure idea for next spring. They argue that revenue can help the state manage the rising costs of people attending public schools and relying on services during the recession.
“As legislators, we have many tools for balancing our budget — including giving the voters the option of approving new revenue to pay for the services they want,” Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, said in a joint statement.
“We strongly encourage our colleagues in both parties, in the House and Senate, to avoid drawing lines in the sand and instead to arrive in Olympia in November prepared to offer solutions and to be ready to discuss all the possibilities,” they said.
Their counterparts in the Republican Party — Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, and Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield — rebutted the premise.
“How to bring costs down and streamline state government should be the very first thing we explore with our colleagues to prepare for the special session in November,” the two Republican leaders said in their prepared statement.
“We know from recent history that as soon as discussions begin about increasing revenue, all talk of reforms seems to evaporate,” the Republicans said.
Republican lawmakers oppose new or higher taxes and have the power to prevent them. State law requires tax hikes be approved by two-thirds votes in both chambers of the Legislature.
“I think it will be trouble if the Democrats bring out revenue right at the start. It will make it difficult to reach a bipartisan solution,” said Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Olympia, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Gregoire wants lawmakers to reach agreement on a budget plan by the start of the emergency session, knowing it might take them all of the allowed 30 days to debate, revise and pass it.
Rep. Barbara Bailey, R-Oak Harbor, who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, said such a deal is vital.
“Without an agreement, we can plan on spending Thanksgiving, Christmas and every holiday for the next six months trying to get a deal,” she said.
The challenge Gregoire and lawmakers face is paring $2 billion from a limited portion of dollars.
Gregoire contends that nearly 64 percent of the general fund is for programs and services she considers untouchable because of state and federal mandates. The biggest chunk is basic education for elementary and secondary students, which is mandated in the state constitution.
That leaves roughly 36 percent of the general fund — an estimated $8.7 billion come this January — from which the cuts can be made, she said.
Her calculations show that includes:
•$4.17 billion for human services, such as the Basic Health Plan.
$1.8 billion for the state’s two-year and four-year colleges.
$1.23 billion for the Department of Corrections.
Already, the governor has directed leaders of state agencies to draw up how they might slash 10 percent of their budgets.
Those outlines arrived Thursday and will be sent to lawmakers and released to the public.
“The social services cuts are painful for me internally. It hurts me at my heart,” she said. “Our education cuts hurt my head because it is the wrong thing to do in a recession. You never want to cut the opportunity for a kid during a recession. They need that more than ever.”
Whatever emerges is going to be uglier than the budget delivered to her in May.
“I don’t doubt one bit I will hate this budget,” Gregoire said. “I will hate this one more than the last one.”
Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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