The Budget

October Update:

During the late September/early October Committee Assembly days in Olympia, the Ways & Means Committee put out two new reports on the state of the budget. The months of economic toil since the legislature adjourned in April have again dealt a blow to the budget. Here are their reports:

• Operating Budget Update: A look at the forecast for the remainder of the two-year budget cycle.
• Budget Reduction Considerations: Specific looks at possible options for budget adjustments.

Both documents are available to download here and here (right click and 'save as').

Budget Facts

K-12 Education

• Cuts to school districts to average 2.6 percent
• I-728 (class sizes) and I-732 (teacher pay raises) suspended
• K-4 class size reduction fully funded

Higher education

• 9,028 enrollments eliminated
• Tuition raised 14 percent at four-year schools, 7
  percent at community colleges
• Total financial aid increased by $52 million
• After tuition increases, cuts to WSU/UW are 7
  percent, 6.5 percent at regional universities and 6
  percent at community colleges

Health and human services

• Basic Health Plan enrollment cut by 40,000
• No reductions to Medicare Part D premium support or to Adult Vision
• $20 million in local public health assistance eliminated
• Various pharmacy initiatives, limiting reimbursements and access to certain drugs, saves
  $84 million
• General Assistance Unemployable program and in-home adult day health services preserved, but
  pared down

Corrections

• Sentencing guidelines relaxed for some crimes, in-home detention and alien offender deportation promoted to reduce prison population
• Community supervision reduced
• No prison or juvenile facility named for closure though budget assumes one each will be named
  later

State government

• As many as 8,000 public employee jobs lost
• Pension contributions reduced
• Salaries frozen for management employees