Article by Senate Democratic Caucus. Published on Tuesday, February 14, 2012 EST.

State Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup.

OLYMPIA, Feb. 13 —With dismaying consistency since the onset of the Great Recession — and as often as not, even before – the Legislature has passed a budget balanced on paper only to return in the next session  to deal with a budget gap caused by a revenue shortfall. Sen. Jim Kastama, chair of the Senate Economic Development, Trade & Innovation Committee, wants to change that.

“The reason our budgets have been unsustainable is that they are based on short-term budget strategies that fail to reconcile our spending with the amount of revenues we actually bring in,” Kastama said. “Viewing budgets through the prism of a four-year window will prevent lawmakers from passing budgets that spend more money than future revenues can sustain.”

Kastama’s Senate Joint Resolution 8222 prohibits the Legislature from enacting, and the governor from signing into law, a budget that spends more general fund revenues for that fiscal year than is forecast to be brought in by the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council. Additionally, the bill prohibits enacting a budget bill that would require appropriations from the general fund to maintain program and service levels in any of the next three fiscal years in excess of general fund revenues forecast for each of those fiscal years. The changes would take effect beginning with the 2014 fiscal year.

“The public rightly expects us to write budgets that pencil out,” said Sen. Jim Kastama. “While we can never know with exacting precision how much revenue we can count on in the future, relying on longer forecasts will ensure that our budgets are closer to reality.”

SJR 8222 passed on a 36-12 vote and now goes to the House for consideration there. As a constitutional amendment, if SJR 8222 passes the House, it would go to the voters for ratification or rejection on the November 2012 ballot.

Your support matters.

Public service journalism is important today as ever. If you get something from our coverage, please consider making a donation to support our work. Thanks for reading our stuff.