But the Republicans’ math was immediately called into question. And the minority party’s leaders refused to say what significant cuts they would make to the safety net, higher education or other programs to offset what they add to K-12.
Many Democrats regard Gregoire’s plan released in November as draconian. Gregoire herself has proposed a tax increase to “buy back” some of the cuts she proposed last year.
House Republicans don’t want to wait.
“This is the wrong approach,” Republican Rep. Bruce Dammeier of Puyallup said. “Education should never be demoted to ‘buy back’ status. We should be funding education first, not using our students as leverage to drive a tax increase.”
Dammeier is prime sponsor of the bill that would make the schools-first budget a legal requirement. Thursday’s news conference was to explain what a $13.66 billion education-first budget looks like:
•It would save the 180-day school year.
•It would retain all levy aid currently given to tax-poor school districts.
•It would avoid a short delay of $340 million in state payments to school operations.
Gregoire’s supplemental budget for 2012-13 had all three of those cuts or shifts.
Majority Democrats in the House said Thursday they agree with the GOP that it’s a good idea to bring more clarity and “transparency” to paying for education in the operating budget.
But Democratic Rep. Kathy Haigh of Shelton said she is killing Dammeier’s policy bill – House Bill 2533 – at today’s bill cutoff in her Education Appropriations and Oversight Committee. She said the bill, which she was the first co-sponsor of, is not workable.
“The real issue is, where does the money come from?” Haigh said. Under the governor’s plan, higher education already faces “horrible” cuts, Haigh said.
House Ways and Means chairman Ross Hunter, D-Medina, said the schools-first plan doesn’t take into account other spending obligations also identified in the state Constitution for courts, public safety and health.
In laying out the separate education budget Thursday, Republican Rep. Gary Alexander of Thurston County said he still was able to write an overall operating budget that protects public safety, the disabled and most vulnerable – including the mentally ill – without new taxes.
Alexander said he hasn’t handed Hunter a specific budget document that does all that. But he has shared details of his plan and says he won’t divulge them publicly unless talks with Hunter fall apart.
Asked for examples of things he would not pay for, Alexander gave one example – the Disability Lifeline that helps people who are temporarily disabled and unable to work. But that one is already on Gregoire’s chopping block.
Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said the fund-education-first idea is more symbolism than substance. The Governor’s Office dismissed it, too.
“We believe the state budget must hang together as a whole, not agency by agency or area by area. Increased spending in one area leads to more reductions in other areas,” Gregoire’s spokesman Cory Curtis said.
Gregoire’s tax proposal includes a half-cent sales tax increase that would go to voters in the spring, raising nearly $500 million a year if approved. She would earmark more than $400 million of it to “buy back” cuts in her base budget.
The House Republicans’ trial balloon comes as majority Democrats in the House and Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are working on full operating-budget plans. Those are expected to be released after the Feb. 16 revenue forecast shows how much money the Legislature has to work with.
