$31.4 billion budget, $4 billion in cuts, clears Senate

OLYMPIA — The Senate on Saturday passed a state budget containing $4 billion in spending cuts, clearing the way for a final day of legislating on divisive issues of unemployment insurance, alternative energy and maybe an oil fee.

On a 29-20 vote, the Senate approved the $31.4 billion spending plan that will lead to layoffs of teachers and state workers, prevent thousands of poor families from getting state-subsidized health coverage and drive up the cost of college for all students.

The vote followed a lengthy debate filled with echoes of exchanges heard in the House before the plan passed there Friday.

“Many of these cuts are heart-wrenching. But given the size of our budget problem, all of them are necessary,” said Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, the Senate’s chief budget writer.

It combines spending cuts with federal funds and cash transfers from other accounts to overcome a projected $9 billion shortfall through the end of the next biennium on June 30, 2011.

It also leaves $822 million in its reserves, a sum lawmakers hope is large enough to cover revenue losses, if the recession persists, and to avert the need for a special session later this year.

Republicans put forth several amendments that failed. They included trying to restore millions of dollars diverted from performance audits and to make state workers pay more for health care in order to free up funds for human services.

Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, said many of the final decisions in the spending plan will create greater costs for the state later.

“This budget is not sustainable,” she said.

With both chambers passing the budget, House and Senate Democrats will face off on this final day on a few tense matters. These include:

Unemployment insurance: Senate Democrats approved a bill with reforms the Boeing Co. and businesses throughout the state endorsed. House Democrats revised it with more favorable terms for workers.

Initiative 937: Senate Democrats are pushing for changes that those in the House argue will gut the voter-approved measure by reducing pressure on utility providers to buy energy produced from solar, thermal, wind and other alternative sources.

Oil fee: On Saturday, House Democrats pushed through a $1.50 fee on each barrel of certain oil products to raise $100 million for cleaning up storm-water runoff that pollutes Puget Sound and other waters.

The fee passed 51-45 with two Republicans joining 49 Democrats to achieve the needed majority. It is unclear if the Senate will even consider the bill before the session is scheduled to end at midnight.

Also Saturday, the House approved the $7.5 billion plan for transportation spending in the two-year budget that begins July 1. The Senate passed the transportation plan Saturday night.

It finances 400 projects including building two ferries for travel between Port Townsend and Keystone, widening a stretch of Highway 522 near Monroe and carrying priority safety improvements on U.S. 2.

Sometime today, the Senate will take up the capital construction budget.

This budget, funded primarily with proceeds from the sale of bonds, is typically the least controversial of the spending plans enacted by the Legislature.

Not this year.

The House passed it late Friday following a sharply partisan debate. The vote was 63-33.

House Republicans expressed frustration with how the $3.27 billion in this budget is spent. They questioned the priorities for spending the money. They tried unsuccessfully to take a portion of funds earmarked to buy new park land and use it to improve 911 emergency service capability around the state.

Not all the capital budget is controversial.

It contains the slimmest of commitments from state lawmakers to put a future college in Snohomish County.

A proviso declares the Legislature intends the “next location for a new campus or branch campus of a four-year state institution of higher education” will be somewhere in the county.

“It lets us continue working on this,” said Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, who pushed for the 31-word statement.

Elsewhere in the budget, millions of dollars of funding is steered into more than a dozen projects of importance in Snohomish County.

Those trying to prevent development of Japanese Gulch in Mukilteo will receive $1 million for buying land.

It also allots $1 million apiece to Snohomish County for building a new emergency operations center and Dawson Place Child Advocacy Center for the purchase of a building in Everett.

In Everett, there’s $1 million for a Visual Arts Education Center sought by the Arts Council of Snohomish County and $500,000 for developing Village Theater’s KIDSTAGE in the former Key Bank building at the corner of California Street and Wetmore Avenue.

Jerry Cornfield, 360-352-8623, jcornfield@heraldnet.com.

Proposed funding for local projects

Here are projects proposed for funding in the final capital budget. To see the entire list go to www.leap.leg.wa.gov and click on “2009 budget proposals” link.