State house ways and means chair Rep. Ross Hunter.
1. The state house ways and means committee released its budget yesterday. Andrew filed a report here documenting the $4.4 billion in spending reductions which include cutting: I-728 funding for class size reductions, saving $1.2 billion; higher education funding by $482 million; K-4 classroom reductions by $216 million; and state contributions to pensions for higher education employees by $57 million.
While the house proposal does save the Basic Health Plan (albeit at limited levels, covering 25 percent fewer people), advocates for community health clinics pointed out a basic irony: the $183 million cut to clinic funding threatens “the health care delivery system that forms the backbone of the safety net and serves the majority of patients on these programs,” according to a statement from the Community Health Network of Washington.
“House leadership said they hoped that saving Basic Health and Disability Lifeline would create a bridge to health care reform,” said CHNW spokeswoman Rebecca Kavoussi, “but these rate cuts wipe out the foundation of that bridge.”
2. The Service Employees International Union 1199, which represents 22,000 nurses and health care workers who work in hospitals and clinics statewide, are planning to converge on the capitol on Thursday to protest the health care hit—with a focus on mental health care services.
“We’re striking for one day, but the truth is that the governor and legislature have gone on strike against the people of this state every day by not funding health care,” said Mary Dessein, an adult drug court liaison at Catholic Community Services in Everett.
Noting that the legislature is not slashing tax breaks and loopholes—there are an estimated $6.5 billion in tax breaks on the books, including an estimated $100 million for banks and $45 million for agriculture, Jared Miller, a children’s case manager at Behavioral Health Resources, said:
“Our priorities aren’t in the right place when legislators continue to leave money on the table for banks and corporations, while taking away services from families and kids, and sentencing people to end up on the streets, in emergency rooms, and in jails. We need to see shared sacrifice by corporations.”
3. As part of our re-design (still tweaking it, but psyched), we’re debuting a weekly series today: ThinkTank Tuesday.
We’ve put together a group of local leaders—Phil Bussey from the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Seattle City Council member Sally Bagshaw, and Geo Quibuyen (aka Geologic from the Blue Scholars), among the many brains—to weigh in on a weekly set of special guest editorials we’ll be publishing every Tuesday.
Today’s editorials, which we’ll post later this morning, are from Wisconsin State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, the Republican majority leader who pushed through the big collective bargaining legislation, and Dian Palmer, a state union employee president with SEIU Wisconsin.
As our budget battle begins in earnest this week—state health care worker unions are angry that their members, who make about $10 an hour caring for seniors and people with disabilities, are taking 10 percent cuts and may lose their own health care coverage—we wonder what lessons there are in Wisconsin for Washington State.
Every few weeks, we’re going to let a lucky reader sit in on the ThinkTank. This week, sharp commenter Michael Maddux is a member of the ThinkTank.
