Washington State Reaches Budget Outline, Averts Partial Government Shutdown
June 28 2017 - 3:51PM
Dow Jones News
By Zusha Elinson
Washington state lawmakers reached the outline of a budget deal
after working into the early morning hours Wednesday, averting a
partial government shutdown, state officials said.
The agreement came after a prolonged fight between Republicans
who control the state Senate, Democrats who control the House and
the governor's office.
The sides have been at odds over how to meet state education
funding levels mandated by the state Supreme Court in its two-year
budget.
Although a deal in principle is in place, negotiators are still
working on the final points, and the full details of the budget
accord won't be released until Thursday, according to state
officials.
More than 30,000 state workers had been given temporary layoff
notices in the event that the lawmakers didn't get a deal done by
the Friday midnight deadline. The partial shutdown would have
touched nearly every state department from parks to prisons.
Republicans and Democrats have been at odds about how to satisfy
a 2012 state Supreme Court ruling that found the state wasn't
adequately funding public education. Republicans had proposed
boosting property taxes while Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, proposed
taxes on carbon and capital gains. House Democrats also proposed a
new online sales tax.
David Postman, chief of staff to Mr. Inslee, said the budget was
a "big lift" because of two factors: "The Supreme Court has said
that the state has not adequately funded education and the
political realities of split control of the legislature."
Mark Schoesler, the Republican state Senate majority leader said
the "real difficulty besides negotiating a budget with the other
chamber and the other party is we are doing a generational change
about how we fund schools in Washington."
The showdown in Washington state, home to more than seven
million people, came as legislatures in Illinois and Maine are also
fighting over their budgets.
The Washington state budget came down to the wire for the third
straight time. Two years ago, Republicans and Democrats were at
odds over similar issues before the sides reached a $38 billion
two-year budget deal.
Write to Zusha Elinson at zusha.elinson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 28, 2017 15:36 ET (19:36 GMT)
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