WA state lawmakers passed a final budget, but what happens next?
On the last day of the 2025 legislative session — and following months of intense debate — Washington state lawmakers passed a final operating budget.
Legislators’ work may be done for the time being, but the budget process isn’t fully over until the governor signs the budget. So what’s next?
The lawmaker-approved operating budget’s delivery came weeks after Gov. Bob Ferguson said he wouldn’t sign either of the initial budget drafts put forward by the House and Senate because they relied too heavily on revenue, including a so-called wealth tax.
Legislators went back to work. Not long after, Democratic budget writers presented an updated $12 billion-over-four-years tax package. But Ferguson still wasn’t totally happy with the plan, classifying it as “too risky” amid federal-government uncertainty.
It remains to be seen how Ferguson will act on the reconciled operating budget that’s now on his desk. Two other state budgets, capital and transportation, await his signature, too.
“I look forward to carefully reviewing the budgets line by line over the next few weeks,” he said in an April 27 statement. “When that review is complete, I will share my thoughts with the public in greater detail.”
Here’s what to expect in the coming days.
Washington state budget process
There are four basic steps to Washington’s budget process, as noted by the state’s fiscal information website:
Funding requests are submitted by Washington state agencies.
The requests are reviewed by the governor, who then prepares a budget proposal.
State lawmakers look over the governor’s budget plan. Next they create and debate their own budget proposal before passing it.
The governor and their team examine and analyze that budget. The governor can then sign it into law or veto it — or partially veto it.
Marty Brown, former director of the Office of Financial Management (OFM), helped further break down the process now that the budget is on Ferguson’s desk.
OFM subject-matter analysts are meeting with Ferguson regularly and offering suggestions to veto or sign budget items. If Ferguson disagrees with an item, he can veto it. From there legal counsel will give explanations for each veto, and the message will be relayed to the Legislature, Brown said.
At the next legislative session, be it special or regular, lawmakers may move to override such vetoes with a two-thirds’ vote.
“During the process members and interested parties will lobby the Governor and staff for or against actions just like during session,” Brown said.
Todd Schaefer, chair of Central Washington University’s political science department, said the main choice before Ferguson now is whether to sign or veto the budget.
Ferguson is getting pressure from hospitality and food industry groups to veto part of a tax bill they say would drive up their costs, Schaefer noted in a phone interview. He added that there’s a “fuel tax and some other things that he could possibly strike out, and then the rest of it would become law.”
“The issue in Washington state, which also is different from the federal government, is that we’re required under our Constitution to have a balanced budget,” Schaefer said. “So if he did that — particularly the revenue package — and didn’t cut spending to equal that, it would unbalance the budget.”
If the change was big enough, then the governor might want the Legislature to come back for a special session to deal with it.
The Seattle Times’ editorial board last week urged Ferguson to veto at least one budget-related bill, and to call lawmakers back to Olympia for “course correction” on the state’s tax policy.
Toward the end of this year’s 105-day session, Senate Minority Leader John Braun, a Centralia Republican, put the odds of a special session at “about 50-50.”
Schaefer said it’d be more typical for a governor to call a budget-related special session when one or both legislative chambers is controlled by the opposing party. In this case, Washington is home to a state-government trifecta; Ferguson is a Democrat, and both the House and Senate currently hold Democratic majorities.
What are the deadlines for the budget?
The governor has 20 days, not counting Sundays, to sign or veto legislation passed in a session’s final days, according to the state Legislature’s website. May 20 is the deadline for Ferguson to act on the budget.
Another option, however unlikely: inaction. The budget could technically still become law if Ferguson opted to let it sit there — without signing or vetoing it — past the deadline.
July 1 is when the signed, “enacted” budget would take effect.
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
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