WENATCHEE — Twelfth District state legislators provided insight on the impending legislative session with Chelan County, Chelan County PUD and the Chelan-Douglas Regional Port Authority Tuesday.
Sen. Brad Hawkins, Rep. Mike Steele and Rep. Keith Goehner and agencies gathered for the Tri-Commission meeting at the Confluence Technology Center in part to highlight local priorities and projects that overlap with the legislative sphere.
Hawkins referred to the upcoming session, starting Jan. 9, as, “an interesting one,” with this session’s biggest focus centered on the three budgets: operating, transportation and capital. The budgets are tackled on a two-year cycle. After the 16-year, nearly $17 billion Move Ahead transportation package in the 2021 session, Hawkins doesn’t anticipate “another big bite of the apple,” for a large transportation investment.
“It is unclear how much state revenue the state will have in the next two to four years (due to inflation),” Hawkins said. “The state has enjoyed economic growth over the past decade and that’s actually led to a growth in the state budget, pretty significantly. The operating budget has nearly doubled in 10 years, from about $33 billion to about $64 billion.”
Steele, who sits on three legislative committees: Education, Appropriations, and recently the Ethics Review committee, said the capital budget is anticipated to be $4.1 billion for the biennium. After dialogue with local officials, Steele is looking to secure Chelan Municipal Airport as an expenditure for the capital budget.
Steele named the Public Works Trust Fund as a focus and said he and the other 12th District legislators are trying to protect the fund “as diligently as we can.” The Public Works Trust Fund was identified as a legislative priority among the Tri-Commission.
“That’s a pretty important pot as we know to local governments and you all are using it very effectively,” Steele said.
Goehner added the session will bring a new obstacle with the 12th District now encompassing a portion of King and Snohomish counties. The new district outline wedges constituents competing interests for the legislators to navigate.
“I found, though, there are a lot of things that are similar,” Goehner said. “We have some significant issues with Highway 2 and we’ve got Monroe, Sultan and Leavenworth that all have similar concerns of congestion.”
A question about the status of the state’s reserve fund or the Budget Stabilization Account, otherwise known as the “rainy day fund,” was voiced by several unidentifiable people in the room. Steele responded with doubt that his Olympia counterparts will prioritize building the reserve back up. He added he doesn’t think there’s an appetite among the legislature to replenish the rainy day fund after some legislators swept the fund for “very interesting things.”
“I do have concerns. The big driver of revenue in Washington is sales tax and when you have an economic slow down, which may be potentially beginning, revenues are going to suffer,” Hawkins said. “You build the budget on the expense side to the edge. What do you do when you have a shortfall? You either have to reduce spending or increase taxes or I guess, a combination of both.”
The 2023 legislative session will be underway for 105 days.
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