Legislature’s budget process needs some fixing

It’s typical that Washington’s Legislature strains to get its work done on time when there is divided government. It also strains mightily when economic downturns force cuts or tax increases. Both have been in play in recent years, accounting for a surge in special sessions.

But some, like Sen. Marko Liias, D- Lynwood, think the state’s somewhat new four-year budget rule is adding to the problem.

That rule requires that the two-year budget — if carried forward into the following two years — be matched by revenues that are expected. But this means decisions are based on sometimes unreliable or changing costs and somewhat speculative estimates of revenue.

So Liias has a point, which he made last week in a newspaper column. And this year, the balanced budget requirement did require extra work as the parties scrambled to could account for enough revenue in the balance of the ongoign biennium and also in the 2017-19 budget cycle.

But, of course, this was all a sort of weird mirage.

Nothing lawmakers did this year took into account the fact they’ll face staggering budget shortfalls when they come back to Olympia in January. That’s because they must finally pay for K-12 schools in answer to the Supreme Court’s orders in the McCleary school funding case.

The big missing piece in the budget is how the state will assume its responsibility for funding basic education entirely and stop using voter-approved local property-tax levies to subsidize costs for teacher pay.

The state Supreme Court is watching closely to see how lawmakers do on that score. Some estimates are that the state will need well over $3 billion in new money to shift this local tax burden onto the state’s shoulders. One GOP plan from last year estimated more than $700 million a year in new state revenues would be needed.

Yet the Legislature’s four-year budget rule is completely silent on this huge looming outlay. As if it doesn’t exist.

In fact, when lawmakers passed the Senate’s four-year budget measure in 2012 they specifically exempted the K-12 costs that they expected to incur as a result of the McCleary decision.

That’s what makes the four-year budget rule a sham.

The four-year rule has imposed some discipline on the budget process. But it’s been used to discourage early investments or honest debate that could have ramped up the amount the state puts into schools each budget cycle.

Is the solution to kill the four-year budget requirement? Maybe not. Perhaps it needs amending so that K-12 costs are included and uncertainty is better acknowledged.

Next year is the Legislature’s final deadline for fully funding basic education under several court orders. That is, unless the Supreme Court strikes down this year’s budget and orders everyone back to Olympia over this summer’s election season to raise taxes and get the job done.

Either way, there’s no real escape. Tose who think the state’s budgets are balanced for four years — and that the current level of taxation is adequate to cover the state’s legitimate needs — are in for a rude awakening.

Costs are going up, and revenues may not go up. The question is whether lawmakers care to be truthful about that.

This story was originally published April 2, 2016 at 10:30 AM with the headline "Legislature’s budget process needs some fixing."