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News / Northwest

WA Attorney General Nick Brown opposes Gov. Bob Ferguson’s desired ‘sweep’ of AG funds

By Jim Brunner, The Seattle Times
Published: January 16, 2025, 10:54am

In his dozen years as attorney general, Bob Ferguson vastly grew his office by steering money from consumer-protection lawsuit settlements into hiring hundreds more attorneys and filing still more cases.

But in one of his first acts as governor, Ferguson now wants to sweep tens of millions of dollars from that operation to fill a looming state budget gap.

And incoming Attorney General Nick Brown isn’t happy about it.

“It certainly is something that we oppose,” Brown said in an interview Wednesday, shortly after he and Ferguson were sworn into their new offices.

“That is money that directly impacts our ability to take on civil rights cases, antitrust cases” and other work “that protects both your average Washingtonians and some of our most vulnerable populations,” Brown said.

He added, “If that budget were adopted as proposed it would have a really devastating impact.”

Ferguson comes to office signaling a cost-cutting agenda, arguing tax increases should be a last resort as the state faces a budget shortfall estimated at more than $10 billion over the next four years.

In offering up a budget framework this month, Ferguson came out in strong opposition to a wealth tax on the ultrarich backed by outgoing Gov. Jay Inslee and some progressive Democratic lawmakers.

Instead, Ferguson outlined some $4 billion in cuts, suggesting most state agencies should cut their spending by 6%.

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His budget cut proposal exempts K-12 education and public safety agencies including the State Patrol and Department of Corrections. But Ferguson’s plan said he would not spare “his own longtime agency” from such cost-cutting.

In addition to across-the-board cuts, Ferguson proposes a “sweep” of $35 million of built-up funds from settlements held by the Attorney General’s Office to help fill the general state budget hole.

That’s half of the $70 million surplus built up in the office, money Ferguson over the years had used to keep expanding its operations, arguing the public benefited.

Ferguson’s budget plan refers to that money as “excess fund balances” — a contrast to how he protected the funds when he ran the office.

During Ferguson’s three terms as attorney general, his office more than quadrupled the number of attorneys in his consumer and antitrust divisions.

In an interview a few months ago, he said the Attorney General’s Office could double its current consumer division and other key units “and they’d all still be busy.”

It was a self-funding expansion, Ferguson has repeatedly said, that has operated “like a business” and made money for the state while also benefiting consumers with refunds and other relief from misbehaving corporations.

“He took great pride into building up that work and explicitly talked about how we should not be treated like other agencies,” Brown said Wednesday.

But in taking office with a giant budget gap between the state’s expected tax collections and its spending obligations, Ferguson argues the state cannot keep doing business as usual.

In his inaugural address Wednesday, Ferguson said finding efficiencies is a “shared responsibility” — and again called for the Attorney General’s Office to pitch in with the $35 million fund sweep.

Brown hopes legislators will take a different view as they craft the budget.

Brown emphasized that he and Ferguson “have a good working relationship” that stretches back over more than a decade, when Brown served as lead legal counsel for Inslee.

“We want to work collaboratively,” Brown said. But, he added, Ferguson’s budget proposal “is a real serious concern.”

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