June in the News

Washington state House and Senate lawmakers announced their supplemental operating budget proposals Monday, with each chamber dedicating most of the funding to K-12 education and behavioral health. Senate lawmakers are proposing a $71.7 billion supplemental operating budget, adding approximately $1.9 billion in new spending. “A lot of thought and discussion with many different people and organizations went into shaping this plan, helping ...

Pay raises and inflation. Hospital beds and opioid treatments. Special education and college financial aid. Electric-powered fire trucks and soccer field renovations. Democratic budget writers in the Senate and House penciled in money for these, and much more, in spending proposals released Monday. Last session, Washington lawmakers passed budgets covering day-to-day operations, capital construction and transportation for a two-year period that began ...

By The Herald Editorial Board State Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett, reacted to her appointment to chair of the Senate’s Ways and Means Committee, with the humility expected from a veteran lawmaker who has worked effectively behind the scenes on policy and budget goals, in the Senate and in the House. “It’s an honor that the caucus trusts me enough to do this ...

Sen. June Robinson, an Everett Democrat, was named Thursday as the new chair of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, the budget-writing panel responsible for developing tax policies and deciding how the state spends billions of dollars each year. Robinson, the committee vice chair for the operating budget and revenue the last three sessions, was chosen in a morning meeting of ...

EVERETT — State Senate Democratic colleagues selected Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett, to serve as the chair of the powerful Senate Ways and Means Committee for the 2024 legislative session. Robinson will be in the decision-making seat in the committee that shapes the state’s budget. The committee also authorizes state debt and deals with tax policy.

OLYMPIA — Hospital executives and nurse union leaders achieved detente late last month in their years-long battle on staffing levels. They only had a handshake, not a deal. Agreement required several more days of negotiations between the two groups and a handful of state senators, drafting every word in a bill prescribing procedures for drafting, deploying and enforcing of staffing plans.

Funding and more will help replenish the community health centers many relied on the past two years.

The landmark investments made this legislative session to Washington state’s health care system are akin to providing critical life support to a patient.

After two years of pandemic response, along with providing continued essential primary and behavioral health services, our community health centers in Snohomish ...

OLYMPIA — A fierce legislative fight over staffing levels and worker protections in hospitals is over. For now. A bill that would have limited the number of patients assigned to a nurse and imposed hefty fines on hospitals that failed to comply with staffing plans died in a Senate committee earlier this week. Nurses and health care workers, many physically and emotionally wiped ...

The Senate and House passed the Senate’s proposed supplemental budget which intends to spend billions on various sectors. The state’s spending bill is now awaiting a decision from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

Democratic legislators in both the Washington House and Senate released their 2021-2023 supplemental operating budgets last week. On Friday, the Senate voted 29-19, passing its proposal into ...

EVERETT — Amid the Taliban’s rise, more than 300 evacuees from Afghanistan were welcomed to Snohomish County between October and the end of January.

Those numbers don’t account for all arrivals from Afghanistan, only those served by a welcoming center the county stood up in October. The increase this month is due to the ...