This morning at 9 am, the state Senate released its supplemental operating budget to cover the rest of the 2009-11 biennium.

In many years, the supplemental budget would see an increase in spending due to economic and tax revenue growth. The exact opposite is true this year as the economy continues to crawl along, albeit with some signs of recovery.

This entails more budget cutting, something politicians are loathe to do. Especially in Washington state where there are literally hundreds of groups and unions that depend on and demand more tax revenue to fund their sometimes questionable programs.

Two examples of this in the Senate budget are a $22 million for increases in state employee health care and $28 million for worker retraining that is taken from the unemployment insurance trust fund—money that is supposed to pay unemployment benefits, paid exclusively by employers. This is $50 million in questionable spending while public colleges and universities are cut 6% by $69 million.

Unfortunately, many of these decisions are politically driven with an eye to the November elections, instead of the long term future of the state. To be fair, this is a difficult situation that legislators have to deal with during a severe recession.

The Senate budget also increases revenues by over $900 million. $500+ million of that is accomplished by closing “loopholes”, $300+ million is gained by a .3 percent increase in the sales tax and the remainder is done through transfers from dedicated funds.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee is holding a hearing on this budget (SB 6444) as this is being written.

At noon today, the state House unveiled its budget. While the House details its spending, it does not say how it will raise the revenue necessary to balance their budget. They contemplate $857 million in increased taxes.

The House Ways and Means Committee will start its budget hearing at 6 pm this evening. You can watch it at www.tvw.org.

The House budget cuts K-12 education in different ways than the Senate does but both do some damage to the public schools. Hopefully, Washington will qualify for Race to the Top federal funds to improve K-12 but that has yet to be determined. A subsequent post will discuss SB 6696, the Race to the Top bill that WTIA has been intimately involved in.

The bottom line is that your bottom line is likely to be negatively affected by the inevitable tax increases that are coming so the state can continue to operate. The question is if state government has really reformed itself to be more efficient, eliminate programs that are of questionable value while fully funding K-12 and properly funding higher education. In some ways the Governor and Legislature have made tough decisions, while in other ways it is business as usual.

You can find and read bills, bill reports and amendments at www.leg.wa.gov. You can also find your state Senator and Representatives there and contact them to let them know how you feel about the state budget, increased taxes or any other topic.