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Tuesday morning, the House Finance Committee held a
lengthy public hearing on the House tax plan, which was
released yesterday. In short, the five-part plan,
embodied in
HB 3191, would raise $758 million in revenue through
a $1 per pack cigarette tax increase, extending the
sales tax to bottled water, candy, gum, janitor
services, custom software and elective plastic surgery,
and closing tax loopholes. For more information, please
see WSSDA’s
Daily Update from March 1. For more detailed
information, please see the
Summary and the
Comprehensive Details of the House revenue plan
provided by the House Democrat Caucus.
After more than two hours of testimony in support of
and in opposition to HB 3191, Committee members met
briefly in caucus and then returned and adopted the
bill. This action puts the House ahead of the Senate in
terms of movement. Even though the Senate released its
tax plan — contained in three separate bills:
SB 6873,
SB 6874 and
SB 6875 — last Tuesday and quickly held a public
hearing on the package the next day, none of the bills
have moved yet. In fact, speculation is that getting the
necessary 25 votes on the tax plan may not be
achievable. While the Senate has been unable to move its
tax package, it was able to move its 2010 Supplemental
Operating Budget proposal,
SB 6444. The budget was adopted by the full Senate
on Saturday evening with the bare minimum of 25 votes —
and that only occurred after two senators switched their
original “No” votes to “Yes.”
The full House is tentatively scheduled to move its
budget proposal,
HB 2824, today; however, there are increasing
concerns that the proposal may not be able to garner the
necessary 50 votes for passage. Tensions are high in the
House right now and there are various rumors of the
House Democrat Caucus splintering. Liberal-leaning
Democrats are apparently upset that the revenue package
is not high enough to avoid cuts to education, health
care and other human services, while more moderate or
conservative-leaning Democrats are apparently concerned
that the revenue package is too large and/or program
reductions aren’t deep enough. Balancing between these
two perspectives has been, and will continue to be,
difficult. And even if 50 votes can be found in the
House, a compromise still needs to be reached in the
Senate. With only nine days left before the
Legislature’s March 11 Sine Die deadline, there is more
and more speculation that a Special Session will be
necessary to complete business.
As this 2010 Regular Legislative Session comes to a
close, remember it is not too late to remind legislators
about your priorities and your concerns. Obviously,
while several education-related bills continue to
survive and move through the process, the major issue is
the 2010 Supplemental Operating Budget and its potential
impacts on K-12 education. OSPI has posted its “pivot”
tables which show the estimated impacts of each of the
budget proposals on the K-12 budget, as a whole and by
school district (visit
OSPI’s
2010-11 Budget Update site and click on “Pivot
Tables”). You are encouraged to review this information
to get a better handle on how the proposals could impact
your district. Please be aware, however, that these are
estimates only. Also, please note that these tables were
prepared and updated on Feb. 26, which was before the
Senate and House budget proposals were amended by their
respective budget committees.
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