Task force: Family leave program must use general fund

Task force decides among 6 options

By Brad Shannon | The Olympian • Published November 15, 2007

Money to pay for Washington’s fledgling paid family leave program will have to come from the state’s general fund, a task force decided Wednesday.

The program, which lawmakers created this year, will pay $250 a week for five weeks to a working parent who takes time off to care for a newborn or adopted child beginning in fall 2009.

A task force was created to look at funding options — including the 1-cent-per-hour payroll tax that supporter Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, has advocated.

But nine of the task force members supported the general fund — a recommendation that needs to be finalized when the group meets Dec. 13 in Olympia. The general fund won out over five other options, including a new wholesale tax on carbonated drinks, a sales tax on candy and gum, a liquor surcharge, a per-hour wage premium or a tax based on earnings.

Supporters of the option included Democrats and two business representatives. Republicans declined to vote. Rep. Cary Condotta, R-East Wenatchee, said he still opposes the program and thinks Democrats want to tap the state’s $1.5 billion surplus only so they can avoid raising taxes in an election year.

“There’s no possible way they are doing a small tax in a short session and getting away with it,” he said after the three-hour meeting in Olympia. He also cautioned that a revenue forecast due today could show that surplus is in danger of shrinking.

But the task force co-chairwomen, Keiser and Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, were confident the general-fund option is best for the first two years.

“We’ll get this up and running and then we’ll get to the long term. … Then we’ll have a sense of what kind of program we have,” Keiser said, estimating it could require $75 million to fund the program through 2013.

Condotta estimated costs of between $82 million and $110 million, which Keiser disputed.

Dickerson said the recommendation should win approval of budget writers. “We have touched base with all the big players, all that we can think of,’’ Dickerson said.

But Gov. Chris Gregoire could prove to be an obstacle. “The governor is open to looking at the general fund on start-up costs, but as for benefits, she is not there yet,’’ Gregoire’s legislative director Marty Brown said.