In Washington state, the biennial operating budget is written in the odd-numbered years and determines how our resources will be utilized for the next two years.
However, things rapidly change in our economy and we usually have to do some mid-biennium tweaking in the even-numbered years – what we call a supplemental budget.
Those tweaks are often necessary because of things like more kids than expected enrolling in public schools, an increase in prison populations or an extreme fire season.
Additionally, the last several supplemental budgets have required substantial cuts in state services due to the effects of the Great Recession.
This year, we also have to address the most recent Supreme Court order on school funding.
Just last month, the court said the Legislature needed to make more progress on our constitutional duty to fully fund basic education for all Washington children.
The 2012 Legislature established the Joint Task Force on Education Funding to develop a proposal for a reliable and dependable funding mechanism to support basic education programs.
The task force was instrumental in constructing a comprehensive plan and the original House 2013-15 budget proposal followed the work done by this task force, adding $1.3 billion in new school funding.
However, the final budget only included $1 billion in education enhancements and the Supreme Court did not find that to be adequate progress.
Recently, Gov. Jay Inslee called for an additional $200 million in school funding to be approved this session. That’s going to be a difficult thing to achieve in this short session for a variety of reasons.
The current operating budget doesn’t have an extra $200 million just sitting around – the ending fund balance is just over $53 million. And, as I mentioned above, we have new expenses that must be paid for, including several devastating wildfires.
The governor proposed ending some non-performing tax loopholes and investing instead on our schools. But every tax loophole has its supporters and it’s never easy to close them.
Nearly two-thirds of any operating budget is protected, either by the constitution or the federal government, and can’t be cut.
That means any funding we move out of the existing budget into education comes at the expense of things like our colleges and universities, the Department of Corrections, our environment or health care and other human services.
Pat Sullivan represents the 47th legislative district. He is the House Majority Leader and serves on the Appropriations Committee, Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, and Rules Committee.
