Washington State Senate Democrats: Darlene Fairley

Fairley’s Message to Residents of the 32nd Legislative District

Senate Democrats — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:25:00 GMT

32nd Legislative District

Well, after 105 days of public hearings, negotiations and votes, we came up with a budget that keeps us within our state's resources. This budget does not reflect my values because of its cuts to our vulnerable communities like seniors, developmentally disabled, young people, etc. However, we were able to use federal stimulus funds and one-time transfers to stave off the deepest of the proposed cuts. It's a budget nobody is happy with, but one that was necessary to deal with the horrible decline in state revenue as a result of the global economic meltdown. Hopefully, we will see an improved economy within the next year.

There was talk this session about increasing the sales tax by 0.3% (which would amount to 30 cents on a $100 purchase) to maintain funding for our health care safety net. By law, all tax increases have to be approved by a majority of voters. However, polling showed that people in several districts are not willing to pay more in taxes to provide these services. Polling also showed disapproval of a personal or corporate income tax, although studies indicate that our reliance on a regressive sales tax makes us the state with the most unfair tax system for lower and middle income taxpayers in the US. We’ll have to see what happens with these tax proposals in the future.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about the outcome of specific bills from the recently completed legislative session.

NO SPECIAL SESSION—YAY!

As usual, we were working down to the wire on the final day of the legislative session, Sunday, April 26. By midnight the Senate had finished passing all bills necessary to implement the budget, but the House ran into a stalemate and couldn’t agree upon a few final bills.

The Governor has decided not to call us back into a short special session to get these particular budget-related bills passed, since agreements could not be reached after several meetings. I’m happy because truly bad legislation can come back during any special session and we only have 9 months until we return to Olympia anyway.

EDUCATION

With the passage of ESHB 2261, we made much-needed progress towards redefining what constitutes “basic education” for the first time in over 30 years. By laying out a 10-year plan to create and pay for quality schools, this bill helps prioritize funding for our schools and acknowledges that teachers are being asked to work in an environment that has changed dramatically over the past several decades. While this bill didn’t please everyone, I see it as an important first step.

Also, I’m grateful that funding for K-12 and higher education turned out to be much better than we first expected. Higher education is being cut 7% for the four year institutions and 6% for the community colleges, not the proposed 20-30%. And for K-12, the statewide average reduction is only 2.6% per district (reductions for school districts in our area are as follows: Edmonds, 2.7%; Lake Washington, 3.1%; Northshore, 3.5%; Shoreline, 2.8%).

Yes, tuition will likely go up and class sizes for grades 5+ will increase, but believe me, the budget could have been much worse for education.

ACTION IN THE COMMITTEE I CHAIR

A bill to expand rights & responsibilities of registered domestic partners came through the committee I’m chair of ─ the Senate Government Operations & Elections Committee. SB 5688 builds on legislation first passed in 2007 and extends the remaining rights and responsibilities in state law. Any benefits with a fiscal impact (pensions, etc.) are delayed until 2014 because our state’s budget deficit.

We passed HB 1517 to allow felon voting rights to be restored once a felon has served his/her sentence, is no longer on probation, and is making efforts to pay restitution. Without this legislation, felons who are no longer in state custody are required to pay off all restitution charges and other court fees before being able to vote. This creates an economic disparity—those who can afford it get their voting rights restored while others take a lifetime to pay off their debt. By gaining back the right to vote, ex-felons are more likely to re-engage with the community. However, be assured that they will still be required to complete all restitution obligations.

A few budget highlights specific to the 32^nd Legislative District:

Our district received funding for:

· $500,000 for a new Park and Ride lot in Lake Forest Park

· $150,000 for flooding mitigation for the Northshore Fire District

· $2.1 million for a variety of maintenance & preservation projects at Shoreline Community College

· Kenmore-based Kenmore Air received a tax exemption to allow them to stay competitive with other commuter airlines and provide more in-state service

I’ll check in again during this interim. Have a wonderful spring and summer. As always, feel free to contact me if you have questions about specific bills or issues.

Take care,

Darlene

Blog: Not feeling upbeat

Senate Democrats — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 01:27:47 GMT

By Sen. Darlene Fairley. I am sorry. I try to be upbeat and positive in my communications with you, but not this time. Many of you have been following the budget news and it is looking worse than we feared. The newest estimates are that we face an $8.5 billion shortfall for the next two year budget, starting July 1. It is truly difficult for me to comprehend the magnitude of $8.5 billion.

To give you an idea of what $8.5 billion in cuts is, we could close:

all prisons—let everyone out and fire all employees
all colleges—that means all Community Colleges plus the four year (UW , Evergreen, Western, Central, Eastern and WSU).
We could also cut:
all care for seniors
all care for folks with developmental disabilities or mental health issues

Say we do the above, it would cause a loss of thousands of jobs, and even with eliminating ALL these vital programs, we still would not have solved the problem.

About half of our state’s budget goes towards mandatory programs, so we can’t just adopt a 25% across-the-board cut because:

Basic K-12 education funding is protected by the state constitution
Medical assistance – i.e. Medicaid – is protected by the federal government
Debt service and corrections are expenditures that the state either cannot default on or must make for the safety of the population

How did we get here?

In Washington, where there is no personal or corporate income tax, retail sales make up over half of state revenue in the operating budget. The loss of consumer confidence has led to a sharp decline in purchases, which directly impacts our state’s revenues. The state’s chief revenue forecaster says, “We are witnessing an unprecedented economic crisis, the likes of which arguably we have not seen since the Great Depression.”

Where do we go from here?

If cuts and efficiencies won’t close this $8.5 billion gap, what are we left with? Due to Initiative 960, passed in 2007 by only 51% of the voting public, any tax increases have to go to the voters, most likely in November. As much as I hate to say this, I think many would rather increase some taxes so we can maintain basic services.

What do you think?

I’m attaching a link to an interactive budget exercise put together by the Senate’s nonpartisan Ways & Means staff to help the public understand the enormity of our situation and to engage in the challenges of balancing the operating budget. I encourage you to check it out at http://fiscal.wa.gov/BalanceTheStateBudget.xls

More information about the budget challenges is available online at http://www.sdc.wa.gov/issues/budget/01.htm

In all of this, I remain committed to advocating for the most vulnerable in our community.

Take care and let me know what’s on your mind.

Darlene

Welcome to my new Website!

Senate Democrats — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:31:19 GMT

This site will be updated throughout the 2009 Legislative Session to provide you with important information on what is happening here in the Senate, as well as useful links to federal, state and local government sites.

On this page you'll find news, videos, photos, audio clips, and important documents designed to keep you informed throughout the year.

Stay tuned for more updates, and feel free to explore the rest of our website, SenateDemocrats.wa.gov