Gregoire expected to propose cuts
Governor set to unveil budget plan on Thursday
By Brad Shannon | The Olympian
• Published December 15, 2008
A budget bloodletting is coming to the state Capitol this week, and howls of pain already are audible in the distance.
Budget-balancing ideas
Gov. Chris Gregoire put out a call last month for ideas to help balance the budget, and she got hundreds of replies, according to her Office of Financial Management. Some ideas, including worker furloughs, are under consideration along with other ideas the government has come up with on its own, her spokesmen say.
Here is a sampling of ideas OFM shared:
• Annex small school districts to larger ones.
• Close state-run liquor stores and ask for $100,000 or $200,000 for a private license to operate a liquor store.
• Consolidate state offices to reduce rent payments.
• Let state workers volunteer to work 32-hour weeks, reducing payroll by 20 percent; let workers take one-year leaves of absence.
• Have state workers take one day off from work, without pay, each month. "I would imagine that workers would be more willing to give up one day of pay each month in order to keep their jobs," one person wrote in.
• Get rid of the front license plate for cars.
• Borrow money by selling bonds to cover the budget gap.
• Increase the state employee contribution to health care premiums, which is capped at 12 percent of costs.
• Reduce lighting in state offices and consolidating functions such as information services departments that now only serve one agency.
• Require beneficiaries of state services such as welfare to pass urine tests for drug use, just as workers often must pass tests to get a job.
• Eliminate spending on health care that some claim is going to illegal residents.
Gov. Chris Gregoire faces a $5 billion budget shortfall made worse by the weakening economy, and she seeks a cut-to-fix approach that avoids new taxes.
She is scheduled to announce a deep-cutting budget proposal Thursday that could lop $1 billion from K-12 schools, cut jobs or reduce the hours for many of Washington's 110,000 state employees, and shear away big parts of the social safety net.
Gregoire swore off tax increases while on the campaign trail this year, and the recently re-elected Democrat has shown no sign of relenting on that point — even with a budget shortfall she hints could hit $6 billion for the 2009-11 cycle. Even she says it will be "ugly" and that she will hate it.
Against that backdrop, some advocacy groups are holding their tongues, resisting the urge to call for specific tax increases to limit the expected damage.
One exception was Dan Grimm, chairman of a task force on education funding, who last week suggested expanding the sales tax to services, such as accountants, lawyers and doctor visits. However, Grimm's idea was meant to expand funding by $2 billion, not replace spending.
"We're talking to health care people; we're talking to state employees. We're trying to assess what options we have. We all need more revenue," George Scarola, legislative director for the League of Education Voters, said recently. He declined to specify what kind of tax increase might be palatable to a coalition of interests.
Top Republican budget writers such as Sen. Joseph Zarelli of Ridgefield have praised Gregoire for a no-new-taxes approach and called for bipartisan efforts to "rebase" the state's budget at a lower, sustainable level.
But Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, a Spokane Democrat, is leery of a "cuts-only" approach that might put more people out of work.
"I think when people see the reality of the budget shortfall they are going to be willing to consider a wide range of options," Brown said this month when lawmakers were in Olympia for a flurry of pre-session committee meetings. "That's what we're doing now, putting together a very wide-ranging list of options" that could include a review of tax exemptions.
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