washington business
State employees
contribute 15 percent
of the cost of their health care.
Private sector employees
contribute 20-25 percent
of the cost of their health care.
what a sustainable budget looks like
stop pretending
The recession brought about a sudden reverse in the trend,
leading the state’s then-chief economist, Arun Raha, to
start going before lawmakers with downward revisions to
the state revenue forecast quarter after quarter.
As a result, lawmakers were forced to make major spending cuts and forestall even deeper cuts with federal aid.
Even so, the amount of money the state brings in each year
has actually gone up during the recession. It just hasn’t gone
up enough to keep pace with the desired level of spending.
And that provides a measure of hope going forward.
“There is a way out of it,” Chandler said.
It starts with taking a realistic look at the amount of money
the state is expected to take in during the next few years.
Historically, the state’s Office of Financial Management produced six-year outlooks, documents that, however inexact,
One of the ways that lawmakers have balanced the
budget in recent years is by postponing expensive — and
unfunded — voter-approved initiatives. They include
Initiative 728, reducing class size, and Initiative 732,
giving teachers raises.
Lawmakers have also delayed implementing a paid
family leave law that they approved themselves. The
problem with this approach is that the cost of programs
eventually comes back on the books, virtually guaranteeing
a future budget shortfall.
The latest six-year outlook projects a $2.85 billion shortfall
by 2017 — and that’s with healthy annual revenue growth.
Rather than continue pretending that the state will
someday be able to afford these measures, supporters of
a sustainable budget approach say it’s time to drop the
charade and admit that the money is not
there to implement the measures — not now,
and probably not ever.
That’s the thinking behind a constitutional
amendment proposed last year that would
require ballot measures to have their own
— Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup
funding sources.
Some other ways that lawmakers can close
provided lawmakers with some idea of how much money
the gap between expected revenue and expenses is to
would be available to spend in the future.
implement Lean practices throughout state government,
Officials recently released a new six-year outlook after
and address the cost of employee health care.
a break in their regular publication. It assumes an annual
Lean processes, a familiar term in the manufacturing
4.5 percent growth in state revenue.
world, rely on workers to continuously improve the work
Next, lawmakers must examine everythi