After just a week, the 2010 legislative session has already turned brutal with lawmakers taking direct aim at state employees with a plan to inflict a 5 percent pay cut through furloughs and legislation to erase all five residential habilitation centers with a simple stroke of the pen (see story below).Meanwhile, the governor's "Book 2" budget with revenue proposals to buy back some services chopped in her first all-cuts budget still targeted institutions and rolled back only a token number of the $14 billion in tax loopholes.
Added up, that pointed to lower quality services and set the hair of hundreds of WFSE/AFSCME members on fire.
"State workers have already given up $1 billion taken out of their wages, benefits, pensions and jobs," WFSE/AFSCME Executive Director Greg Devereux told the Senate Ways and Means Committee Jan. 18.
"Piling on future state employee health costs and furloughs makes no sense.
"It is pennywise and pound foolish. Such strategies will only send state employees to the foreclosure line and compound our problem."
Throughout the first week, members descended on the Capitol and packed hearings on the budget.And more than 400 trekked to the Capitol yesterday on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday to tell lawmakers enough is enough.
They included some 150 DSHS interpreters fighting for the right to a union and against cuts in their program that would save $4 million but sacrifice $12 million.
AFSCME Green shirts filled a hearing room that day as Devereux summed up the members' anger and concern over the budget at the Senate Ways and Means Committee hearing on the budget.
"Eliminating programs and 1,500 family wage state worker jobs to potentially created 40,000 new jobs (in the private sector) only exacerbates the recessionary pressures," Devereux said.
"We need to preserve critical safety net services while keeping workers in their current jobs."
The closure of institutions recommended by the governor would only add to economic problems, he said.
"Little money is saved by closing Ahtanum View Corrections Center and Pine Lodge Corrections Center while quality programs are thrown out," Devereux told the Senate budget writers.
"The recommended closures of Frances Haddon Morgan and Rainier State School actually cost the state money. To us, an unwise investment at this juncture.
"Moreover, cuts to JRA (juvenile rehabilitation) facilities and Community Corrections are equally harmful."
"It's time for shared services and not balancing the budget on the backs of state employees and quality services, he said.
"We too urge you to consider all revenue options" including closing a significant number of tax loopholes that divert tens of billions of dollars away from the state treasury, Devereux said.
HERE ARE THREE ISSUES THAT OUGHT TO SET YOUR HAIR ON FIRE
Besides the budget cuts, here are other hot issues that ought to set your hair on fire:
- Furlough bill. The bill to inflict a 5 percent pay cut on state employees through 16 mandatory furlough days comes up for a hearing today in the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Sen. Margarita Prentice, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, introduced the bill, SB 6503. It would close state agencies on 16 days from March 12, 2010 (the day after the Legislature adjourns) to June 10, 2011. Employees would be temporarily laid off on those days and lose pay. Collective bargaining rights would be honored. Still, that amounts to a 5 percent pay cut. That would be on top of what amounted to a 4 percent cut in pay when pay raises were cancelled and $300 million in pension contributions were diverted. With a couple of exceptions, most jurisdictions have not asked for more than a 5 percent total sacrifice. SB 6503 would make it 9 percent!
- RHCs wiped out with a the stroke of a pen? The governor and two top senators introduced legislation that would wipe out the statutory authority for all residential habilitation centers that provide quality care to some of this state's most severely developmentally disabled citizens.
Gov. Chris Gregoire requested Senate Bill 6423, co-sponsored by Sen. Darlene Fairley of the 32nd District and Sen. Jim Hargrove of the 24th District. Fairley chairs the Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee. Hargrove heads the Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee. Gregoire's proposed budget would shutter Frances Haddon Morgan Center in Bremerton and Rainier School in Buckley. But SB 6423, by authorizing DSHS to run RHCs without specifying where if at all, puts Lakeland Village, Fircrest School and Yakima Valley School also at risk.
The bill is now due for a hearing soon in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
- Tax breaks for gold bullion dealers or saving quality services? You've sacrificed $1 billion out of your own pocket. Programs have been cut to the bone. But yet the governor and lawmakers seem to want to protect big tax breaks that take some $98.5 billion from the state treasury. Some $14.8 billion are ready targets for suspension or elimination, but the governor is proposing changes that will bring in just $16 million this biennium and $64 million the next. And what are those sacred cows that sap the state of its revenue: tax breaks for the Seattle Seahawks' and Seattle Mariners' stadiums; gold bullion dealers; and condominium maintenance costs. And that's just a few.
CAPITOL NUGGETS YOU NEED TO KNOW
Nugget No. 1: Federation Lobbyist Matt Zuvich testified Jan. 15 in favor of two bills supported by our Ecology members to better fund the water rights permitting program. The bills are Senate Bill 6267 and House Bill 2591.
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