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In Our View: Pain in Olympia

Legislators were smart to adopt a reduce-but-don't-eliminate strategy

The Columbian
Published: May 26, 2011, 5:00pm

So widespread is the pain in the new state budget, some might claim that the only good that can be found in the two-year plan is that there are no tax increases. But there’s at least one other positive aspect: For the most part (there were a few exceptions), legislators deployed a reduce-but-don’t-eliminate strategy.

This was a wise and visionary approach because it allows crucial programs and services to be strengthened in the distant future, assuming the recovery from the Great Recession ever accelerates from its current snail’s pace. Another positive aspect of the two-year budget was described by Gov. Chris Gregoire, who said “we developed that balanced budget with no new revenue, with no short-term fixes and with no budget gimmicks.”

Still, there is no way to hide the pain inflicted by this new budget on virtually all areas of state government. About half of the reductions occurred in education. Teachers were dealt a 1.9 percent reduction in pay, and other school employees had their pay cut by 3 percent. Also in education, legislators suspended a voter-approved initiative that provided cost-of-living adjustments for other K-12 and academic workers.

At the higher-education level, the pain was extended to students and parents, who were hit with tuition increases of between 11 and 16 percent for each of the next two years. Coupled with tuition increases imposed in recent years, this means that, at the end of this biennial budget, a student at the University of Washington will pay twice as much tuition as a student paid five years ago. Think about that. Tuition more than doubling in less than a decade.

State workers in other areas will have to take unpaid leave that amounts to a 3 percent cut in pay.

How do we fix this problem? was the tough question. That’s what drove lawmakers nearing the end of a special session to hammer out their agreement.

How did the problem develop? was the easy question. We got into this mess not because voters asked the state to stop taxing them so much but because the state has for some time extended services and programs and benefits to its workers that simply were not sustainable. The voters’ response last fall was understandable. Three ballot measures called for a requirement that tax increases receive two-thirds approval of both houses of the Legislature, plus a state income tax on the wealthy and a repeal on new sales taxes on candy, soda and bottled water. When voters approved the first and third and rejected the second, they mandated there would be no new revenue to help lawmakers deal with the $5.1 billion deficit. That left only one path: deep ones.

One of the biggest controversies was the reform of the workers’ compensation plan. Limited, structured, voluntary settlements were approved by lawmakers, a reasonable approach in that the system is in such deep financial trouble, and businesses now will have costs curtailed in ways that help prevent an increase in rates.

Legislators in both parties are busy praising each other on this year’s bipartisan spirit, but, really, they had no choice. Destitution has this way of turning adversaries into allies. But to their credit, the lawmakers collaborated on several meaningful bills. The state’s debt limit was reduced to 7.75 percent of the operating budget, down from 9 percent. They compromised on a phased-in closing of the state’s only coal-burning power plant by 2025. They properly refused to allow King County to extend its stadium taxes beyond the promised expiration date.

What we really learned from this year’s budget is the government simply can’t be all things to all people. And governmental workers simply can’t be living in a different economic reality than the rest of us.

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