Eastside business leaders came looking for answers last Thursday, Jan. 8, to the state’s budget woes as they met over breakfast with area legislators. Unfortunately, answers were short in coming.
“We have no idea what’s going to happen with the budget,” Rep. Ross Hunter (D-Medina) told the gathering of East King County Chambers of Commerce.
The state is on a roller coaster ride, Hunter said, and it has yet to hit the bottom where “you get pushed into your seat.”
Chambers represented included Bellevue, Bothell, Issaquah, Maple Valley-Black Diamond, Newcastle, Redmond, Renton, Sammamish, Woodinville and Snoqualmie Valley.
The 105-day session of the Legislature begins Tuesday, Jan. 13 and with it comes the problem of dealing with a projected budget deficit of about $5.7 billion.
That number is only an educated guess; Hunter said it will get worse. He was joined on a panel by Sens. Rodney Tom (D-Medina) and Fred Jarrett (D-Mercer Island), and Reps. Glenn Anderson (R-Fall City), Larry Springer (D-Kirkland), Roger Goodman (D-Kirkland) and Judy Clibborn (D-Mercer Island).
President of the Sammamish Chamber of Commerce, John James, told The Reporter this week that the feeling among business owners at the meet was “how are we going to survive the next six months?”
“The message that came out of the meeting was that there will be a budget shortfall,” James said. “For local businesses the area of concern is definitely the provision of tax incentives, for hiring and for development, things that will help to revitalize the economy.”
James said that although businesses in Sammamish were feeling the effects of the economic downturn, the city of Sammamish was in better financial shape than most, as its revenue was largely derived from property taxes, and was not reliant on business taxes.
Gov. Chris Gregoire has written “a budget for all of us to hate,” Goodman said.
The last time the Legislature faced making major budget cuts was in 1981, Goodman said. This year, he noted, the situation is three times worse.
That, Jarrett noted, means the Legislature “will have to go through the messy sausage-making process.”
The Legislature will tackle the budget “with no pre-ordained plan,” Tom said, although many on the panel already has misgivings about some parts of the governor’s budget.
Springer said the governor’s budget cuts funds for people who are considered unemployable.
“If you take that away, as the governor’s budget does, he said, “where do you think those people will go?”
His assumption: to jails and under freeway overpasses.
Anderson said that education is the paramount duty of the state and that “we have to invest now in K-12” while Jarrett commented that the governor’s budget dealt with education better than he had feared.
However, while Hunter noted that while the governor’s budget “only cut K-12 by 5 percent,” it’s likely that the actual deficit the Legislature will have to deal with will be $2 billion worse.
