OLYMPIA — Senate Democrats unveiled a series of reform ideas Thursday that won’t bank much money for the state’s immediate budget shortfall but will, they say, save hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming years.
The lawmakers suggested nearly 50 ideas during a meeting with reporters, but acknowledged that only a few are likely to be pursued during the 60-day legislative session that began Monday.
Those ideas include consolidating K-12 employee health insurance programs, which they estimated could save up to $90 million a year. They also want to strengthen the ability to identify fraud and abuse in the Medicaid system, which could save about $1.6 million for the next two-year budget that ends in 2017.
“The goal here is not only to deliver a better quality outcome at a lesser cost, but also when we’re facing a huge budget shortfall to figure out if we can narrow that number of that shortfall,” said Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane.
Lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Monday for the start of session, during which time they need to address a projected budget deficit of about $1 billion through June 2013.
Gov. Chris Gregoire wants a buffer of several hundred million dollars in case the economy underperforms, meaning legislators will have to make about $1.5 billion in cuts or find new revenue. The Democratic governor has also asked the Legislature to send a temporary sales tax to the November ballot to help offset those pending cuts.
Republicans opposed to the sales tax increase idea have been calling for “reform before revenue.”
Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, said that he hasn’t gone through all of the Democrats’ ideas on reform, but that it was a good start.
“I’m just happy to see them bring some reforms forward,” he said. “The more, the merrier.”
Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, said that the initial reform they pursue this year may only save $50 million or $60 million from the current budget, but that the effect will be long-lasting.
“We came up with a list of some real significant things that we’re going to take on this session, that will have some amount of savings in this biennium but then will increase many fold in the future biennias,” he said.
Brown said that If they pass several of the proposed reforms, they expect to save about $300 million over the next three years, with most of that savings seen in the 2013-15 budget.
The Senate Democrats’ reform agenda for the year also includes lowering remediation rates for students by offering incentives to school districts that improve the rates of students who are ready to go to college without taking remedial courses, which could save more than $65 million a year. In addition, they want to review leasing and purchasing contracts, which could save up to $11 million a year.
Other suggestions proposed Thursday include:
—Eliminating the Liquor Control Board, which would save $364,000 a biennium.
—Increasing or changing the amount state employees pay for their premiums, saving between $15 million and $100 million for the 2013-15 budget.
—Reducing worker misclassification and payroll fraud, saving an estimated $1 billion over the next 10 years.
Brown said that reform alone won’t fix the state’s budget problem.
“After we get through this process we’re still going to have a gap between revenue and expenditures,” she said.
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