OLYMPIA — Two House budget panels on Monday offered the first peek at majority Democrats’ budget ideas, suggesting tiny reductions in Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed spending as the Legislature awaits news of a revenue slowdown.
House and Senate Democratic leaders have publicly agreed with the governor’s request to save reserves of at least $1 billion, given the projected deficit of more than $600 million by the end of the 2009-11 budget cycle and speculation that the state Revenue Forecast Council will lower revenue projections even further.
The council meets Feb. 15.
Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said both chambers and the governor’s budget office have begun talking about the potential for modest cuts in the existing $33 billion, two-year budget. Lawmakers and the governor are tweaking the second year of that budget.
“We agreed in a three-corner way — the governor, the (House) speaker and I — that we would all actually spend some time looking at last year’s budget and scrubbing it a bit to see if there were some efficiencies that we could identify,” Brown told reporters.
“So we’re not taking for granted that everything that was budgeted last year is going to go completely forward this year.”
Before the recent flood of negative news about the national economy, the governor recommended net increases of $234 million and proposed reserves of $1.2 billion.
In the Legislature’s initial concrete response to Gregoire’s budget request, the Democrats seemed to agree with her hold-the-line approach.
The House Appropriations education and general government committees didn’t expand the governor’s spending request, and actually trimmed her levels by a tiny amount.
The education panel would add about $60 million above current levels for early learning, K-12 and higher education programs, and would come in about $200,000 below Gregoire. The largest single chunk is a small pay boost for teachers.
Chairwoman Kathy Haigh, D-Shelton, said only minor tweaks were needed in the education budget.
“The biennial budget we built last year invested more in education than ever before,” she said. “That made it easy to deal with issues that have emerged since then and keep us on the right track toward a seamless education system from pre-kindergarten through college.”
The general government panel, which reviews budgets for the Legislature, the courts and many state agencies, proposed even smaller changes. The committee recommended trimming $5 million from selected programs and adding about that much back in other areas.
The panel’s plan would provide a net increase of about $30 million over current budget levels. That is slightly less than Gregoire proposes adding, with $16 million for monitoring sex offenders, and money for environmental programs.
Chairwoman Kelli Linville, D-Bellingham, said her panel will continue to look for budget savings.
“We worked within Gov. Gregoire’s budget, but even with changes, we share the priorities of safe communities, smart environmental policy and affordable housing,” she said. “We need to be fiscally sound as a state, while we invest in the future and this budget reflects that prudence.”
Minority Republicans and Gregoire’s re-election challenger, Dino Rossi, have been calling for budget cuts. They note the 33 percent increase in spending during the past four years, and say Democrats are driving the state into deficits that will require spending cuts or tax hikes next year.
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