Dear friends and neighbors, 

We’re over a third of the way through the 2024 legislative session! We’ve got our first deadline this week – Jan. 31. That’s when policy bills will need to make it through their committee of origin. After that, much of the action will happen in the fiscal committees and on the House and Senate floors. 

My bill (SB 5999) to make college and apprenticeships more affordable for working families made it out of committee with bipartisan support. We heard testimony from so many students about what it would mean for them if this legislation passed. We had 367 people sign in to support the bill; no one signed in opposed. As the ranking Republican member on the committee – who voted for the bill out of committee – noted, “The message is pretty clear on this bill.”

Recently, my Senate colleagues voted to confirm me as the new vice chair of the Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee. I’m grateful for their trust, and I look forward to working alongside the new chair, my friend Sen. T’wina Nobles! 

What we’re doing to improve ferry service in Kitsap County

Like all of us, I am frustrated and disappointed by the current state of our ferry system. This is the product of many years of neglect. Many of us have tried for years to get our legislative colleagues to pay closer attention – I voted against a major gas tax increase shortly after I entered the Legislature because not enough of the money went to ferries – but it took the crisis we are now experiencing to get more people to take it seriously. We have a lot of work to do to get our ferries back to full service, but I want to give you a brief overview of some of the things we’ve done so far and what we’re working on now in the Legislature. 

We need 26 boats system wide to provide reliable service. That gives us enough boats to run full service on all routes, with  backups for when one goes down or when others are out for regular maintenance. Right now, we have 21; largely because we (incorrectly) did not prioritize boatbuilding – but also because of accidents and because boats have failed when we’ve delayed maintenance for too long. 

We also have a slowly-building staffing shortage. There’s a global shortage of skilled maritime workers to start with — BC Ferries has had hiring problems too. And then, even before COVID, about 50% of our skilled ferry personnel were at retirement age. Then COVID hit, and we saw a wave of retirements. It was tough and dangerous work to be in-person on ferries during COVID; it would rip through an entire engine room at once. And the vaccine mandate wasn’t something a lot of people liked; so we lost something like 7% of our ferry workforce – approximately 130 of 1900 people – almost all of whom worked on the vessels. 

Here’s what we’ve put in place to address all this. 

On the vessel side, we’ve totally redone our procurement process to get vessels cheaper and faster (HB 1846). Specifically, we’re expanding our pool of potential out-of-state builders so we have more options. It still takes time to get a boat built, but preliminary indications from Washington State Ferries are that we’re likely to get attractive bids from both a cost and speed perspective.

On the staffing side, we’ve significantly expanded recruiting and retention efforts: partnerships with the Seattle Maritime Academy to hire new personnel, retention bonuses for working through COVID, a 17% pay increase for the most skilled vessel crew members, payment for certification for people who we’re trying to hire from other systems to get certified to be captains — but they’re taking time to work; it takes something like 550 days to get a captain certified, and that’s a Coast Guard requirement so we don’t control it. 

We’re also looking at various measures to bridge the gap while the new vessels come online. Specifically, we’re trying to bridge the gap to the new vessels with maintenance on the existing vessels; and we’re also looking at supplementing service with the Kitsap Transit passenger-only ferry and (potentially) the King County Water Taxi. We’ll keep working on the staffing side as well: we’re looking at increasing funding for the Seaman to Mate program, hiring additional crew for each shift, and broadening out-of-state recruitment. 

We’re going to keep focused on this. It’s an embarrassment for our state, and it’s a huge problem for people in Kitsap County. Like all of you, I’ve been stuck on one side of the water or another when routes are on one-boat service or a sailing suddenly gets canceled. I’m on the Transportation Committee in the Senate and ferries are of course my #1 transportation priority. 

How you can get involved this session  

Amazing visit with local school district personnel and (best of all) students from Bremerton High School—I learn SO MUCH from these meetings, there’s no substitute for the on-the-ground perspective!

  • Learn how the legislative process works here.   
  • Find legislation here.  
  • Watch committee hearings, floor debates and more on TVW.   
  • Testify in committee hearings in person or remotely by signing up here.   
  • Follow my official Facebook and Instagram pages for legislative updates throughout the year.   
  • Call my office. If you have questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out by phone at 360-786-7644, or email at Sen.Drew.Hansen@leg.wa.gov. Your feedback is so important and helps me better serve you.   

Sincerely,

Drew Hansen