By Erik Smith | Washington State Wire | | 0 Comments
You’re never going to believe this one. On Monday, as he tried to make the case for a troubled transportation package and a highly controversial bridge project at Vancouver, Gov. Jay Inslee did his best to send chills down everyone’s spine by reminding them of “the bridge that fell down in Minnesota.” And four days later, guess what happens? Oh, of course it’s a coincidence — but this could be the game-changer that transportation and Columbia River Crossing advocates have been looking for.
By Manuel Valdes and Mike Baker | Associated Press |
Washington state officials are scrambling to find a temporary fix for a bridge that collapsed on an important interstate highway and, incredibly, left just three motorists with injuries. Whatever the solution, it won’t come in time to help with Memorial Day’s highway hordes. Story notes that the bridge has been struck by vehicles repeatedly. Was it the way the bridge took the latest hit, or was it something else?
By Jim Camden | The Spokesman-Review |
By Jim Boldt | 4 Comments
License Trolling and Indoor Growing Most people who need to or want to, have read all forty-six pages of the Washington Liquor Control Board’s, LCB’s, proposed rules for implementation of Washington State’s recreational cannabis law. First, so much for the regulators dropping the derogatory term marijuana for the proper, scientific name of the plant, cannabis. More »
By Jim Boldt | 0 Comments
Liquor Control Board Director Garza Rick Garza got the LCB director job. As hinted here last week, this is a logical and good choice for the cannabis rule-creation agency. Garza brings experience, Olympia insider status, and a good working relationship with the Guv. He raised a few screams when, during a House hearing, he claimed More »
By The 9th Order | 0 Comments
The State Health Benefit Exchange Board met in SeaTac on Wednesday and reluctantly voted to only offer small business group health insurance plans in two or three counties for its first year. There will still be a large number of small business plans statewide offered outside the Exchange. None of this impacts the individual health insurance market where there will be a robust number of plans available both inside and outside the exchange.
By The 9th Order | 0 Comments
With these words Governor Jay Inslee opened the first meeting of the Climate Legislative and Executive Workgroup, a new committee created by SB 5802 — gubernatorial request legislation that passed the Legislature in March. The Governor quoted from the legislation, “The purpose of the work group is to recommend a state program of actions and policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that if implemented would ensure achievement of the state’s emissions targets.”
By The 9th Order | Washington State Wire | 0 Comments
By The 9th Order | 0 Comments
Unemployed workers are eligible for up to 26 weeks of Regular unemployment insurance benefits and 37 weeks of federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC). But beginning on May 26, because of the federal budget cuts know as Sequestration, claimants will see their EUC benefits cut by 21.08% as they begin EUC or complete their current tier of benefits (the 37 weeks of EUC are divided in to three tiers).
Given the peculiarities of Washington’s system, benefits paid is the best metric for comparison. The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services ranks premium rates among the states, but, as we have written extensively,
By Emily Makings | Washington Research Council
Washington gets mixed reviews from CEOs of the Roundtable, generally scoring well on quality-of-life issues and not so well on business cost issues. With workers’ compensation the CEOs have very deliberately chosen the National Academy for Social Insurance’s benefits-paid ranking, rather than a business-cost ranking.
By DAVID GROVES | WSLC Stand
Every public school principal is painfully familiar with being forced to send children to a classroom where she knows the teacher there is not the best fit, but the teacher’s placement has been forced on the school by higher-ups at the central district.
By Liv Finne | Washington Policy Center
The Senate is failing at this. Instead of raising the additional revenue it would take to meet public needs, the Senate relies on over $600 million in “funny money,” hidden cuts, and other actions that weaken the whole structure.
By Kim Justice and Mike Mitchell | Washington Budget & Policy Center
Recently environmentalists have been claiming that coal dust poses an environmental risk to the region because coal transits the Northwest by rail. But there is no credible study to support this assertion, and I wonder what the true motivation for making such a claim might be.
By MIKE ELLIOTT | WSLC Stand
State Auditor Troy Kelley released a performance audit which found:
Washington’s financial management system does not efficiently meet agency or state needs because of fragmented, outmoded technology. As a result, state agencies have implemented numerous stand-alone components, which are redundant, and financial managers, agencies, and legislative staff do not have access to the real time financial information they need to make informed decisions.
By Jason Mercier | Washington Policy Center
The state just got some good news about the improving post-recession financial outlook of Washington’s workers’ compensation system. And that’s bad news for Republicans’ special-session effort to revive legislation expanding the controversial lump-sum buyouts of injured workers.
By David Groves | Washington State Labor Council/ The Stand
In a little less than three months, Washington State’s largest cities and counties must start following new rules on how to manage dirty runoff that washes toxic metals, oil and grease, fertilizers, and other pollution into our streams, lakes, and ocean.
By Sightline Daily
The House budget goes further than the Senate to preserve and strengthen state investments that protect seniors and children. On investments in clean air, water, and land, both the House and Senate make damaging cuts, but the Senate cuts to key environmental programs that maintain Washingtonians quality of life are far deeper.
By Kim Justice | Washington Budget & Policy Center
The House– and Senate– passed 2013–15 operating budgets each rely on shaky assumptions on revenues, savings, transfers from the capital budget, and reserves. Legislators’ special session goal must be a budget that doesn’t rely on one-time transfers, increased business costs, unrealizable savings, or drained reserves.
By Washington Research Council Policy Brief
In the coming days, this series, Special Legislative Session: The Big Picture, will look more closely at House and Senate budget proposals in each of the four value areas- economic security, thriving communities, healthy people and environment, and education and opportunity. The House plan clearly does a better job investing in our key values.
By Kim Justice | Washington Budget & Policy Center
What’s the best way to make a case for a carbon pollution tax to conservative audiences? Why not speak their language? Just listen to the outspoken conservatives who favor a tax on carbon pollution.
By Mark Feldman and Anna Fahey | Sightline
SB 5843 is a strong first step towards increased transparency in our revenue system. While much more can and should be done moving forward, the Senate should approve these changes and begin to ensure that our tax code is held to the same level of scrutiny as our state budget.
By Michael Mitchell | Washington Budget & Policy Center
By John Stang | Crosscut
By Anthony Anton and Joe Gilliam
By Paula Hammond | Crosscut
By Erik Smith | Washington State Wire | 0 Comments
The final fund-raising numbers are in, and they give just a hint of how hot things are going to be in this year’s numero-uno legislative race. During that brief two-week window earlier this month when sitting lawmakers were allowed to solicit contributions, Republican Jan Angel and Democrat Nathan Schlicher managed to raise a total $185K. The leader? Angel, by a two-to-one margin. But don’t read too much into that. The real question is whether this single campaign will break the state record — or rather, by how much.
By Stephanie Rice | The (Vancouver) Columbian
By Edtorial | The (Vancouver) Columbian
By John Stang | Crosscut
By KOMO News
Washington state ranked 30th, spending nearly $9,500 per student. But that was still below the national average of $10,560. The national average dropped slightly from the previous year, marking the first time the per-student spending average has decreased since the Census Bureau began collecting data in 1977.
By Jeremy Pawloski | The Olympian
By Erik Smith | Washington State Wire | 0 Comments
Gov. Jay Inslee is taking a breathtaking gamble on passage of a transportation tax increase in this year’s Legislature. In an attempt to force the Senate to swallow an $8.4 billion tax package, and with it a highly controversial new I-5 bridge at Vancouver, the governor has vetoed money in the transportation budget that might have been used to redesign the Columbia River Crossing. The money would have kept the troubled bridge project on life support, but Inslee says it’s his way or no way.
By Joel Connelly | Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By Erik Smith | Washington State Wire | 0 Comments
The starting gun has fired and the state’s big-enchilada, all-the-marbles Senate race on the Kitsap Peninsula is off and running. Washington’s marquee race between Republican Jan Angel and Democrat Nathan Schlicher is shaping up as a barnburner. Candidate filings last week also set up two cases of Republican-on-Republican violence in Eastern Washington as Senate appointees Sharon Brown and John Smith face challengers from within their own party. Aside from that little mayoral contest in Seattle, the three races are the top entertainment this odd-numbered election year. Here’s how they’re shaping up.
By Erik Smith | Washington State Wire | 0 Comments
By Erik Smith | Washington State Wire | 0 Comments
Inslee Chief of Staff Mary Alice Heuschel says the governor’s office will shortly roll out a new business-style planning process that will guide the administration over the next four years. Announcement comes at the annual meeting of the Washington Business Alliance, a relatively new business organization that is working on an even broader strategic plan of its own. Goes to show that lean management isn’t the only business concept that is being applied at the state level these days.
By Erik Smith | Washington State Wire | 0 Comments
A labor-backed ballot initiative in the city of SeaTac would give airport workers and those in nearby hotels and car-rental companies the highest minimum wage in the country by nearly $5 an hour, the latest move in an effort to set the rules at North America’s 17th-busiest airport. It hasn’t made the ballot yet, but already it is causing yelps of pain from business groups. And it is looking like this local initiative might be one of the hottest items on the November ballot, anywhere in Washington state.
