OLYMPIA — The do-or-die second special legislative session that continues today could end within two weeks by producing a two-year state operating budget agreement, state Rep. Steve Tharinger of Sequim and state Sen. Jim Hargrove of Hoquiam predicted.
Hargrove will be among eight House and Senate party caucus leaders who will meet at 10 a.m. today with Gov. Jay Inslee in the governor’s conference room to begin hammering out a timeline to reach a pact, Hargrove said Friday, the first day of the new session.
Democrats Hargrove, Tharinger and state Rep. Kevin Van De Wege of Sequim represent the 24th District that includes all of Clallam and Jefferson counties and most of Grays Harbor County.
Lawmakers earlier this year adjourned their regular 105-day session and returned for a special session that by last Thursday failed to reach an agreement.
But about $400 million in extra revenue contained in a recent state forecast may help ease the way to a budget proposal satisfactory to both chambers.
“The improved revenue picture makes it easier because the numbers are not so far apart,” Tharinger said Friday.
Hargrove said sticking points between the Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic-controlled House include spending of marijuana tax proceeds and a gap between the chambers of about $500 million in overall spending.
“There are some $500 million in resources the Senate is using that are problems that are causing issues elsewhere that still leaves you a little too far apart,” said Hargrove, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
“That doesn’t mean you are not going to get it done.
“I think the motivation is to get the big pieces hammered out — higher education policy, labor police, which resources will be used.”
But interviews last week with Hargrove and Tharinger revealed a fissure between the two Democrats over marijuana proceeds.
Tharinger called the Senate’s forecast unrealistic, while Hargrove retorted that they are in line with credible data.
The Senate released a no-new-taxes budget last week.
Van De Wege said the House, where many lawmakers favor a capital gains tax to raise revenue, will release its proposal today.
“Negotiators have made progress here,” he said Friday, adding details are not typically made public at this stage.
But Hargrove said the capital gains tax doesn’t have a chance in the Senate.
A key hurdle is fulfilling the state Supreme Court’s edict in what’s known as the McCleary decision.
The ruling, the result of a lawsuit, demands that the Legislature provide primary funding for education.
Sequim native Stephanie McCleary, a Chimacum School District employee, was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Van De Wege said the Legislature will fulfill the court’s edict.
“Whether the court agrees with that is another story, because everyone here wants to meet it,” he added.
The Legislature has little choice but to find some accommodation by June 30, Tharinger said.
Unlike Congress, the state Legislature cannot pass continuing budget resolutions.
“The fiscal year ends at the end of June, or else the state has to shut down,” Tharinger said.
Tharinger said once an operating budget is agreed upon, lawmakers will move onto capital spending.
He expects approval of $23.8 million for the allied Health and Early Childhood Center at Peninsula College and $10 million for Port Angeles waterfront environmental cleanup that includes the city’s precarious bluff landfill and polluted Port Angeles Harbor.
Also in line for an aye vote, Tharinger said, is $2.8 million for Fort Worden State Park improvements in Jefferson County and $1.5 million for a state Department of Natural Resources building in Forks.
A transportation operating budget that includes money for ferries and ongoing projects was approved by both chambers and is expected to be signed by Inslee.
The Senate budget proposal included an increase in $12 million in marijuana tax money that would be returned to municipalities, according to The Associated Press.
But Tharinger, vice chair of House Finance Committee, said the Senate budget contains marijuana revenue forecasts “that are really a wild guess.”
But those revenue assumptions “are pretty much accepted across the board,” Hargrove responded.
“It’s how it will be spent that’s the issue.
“The House spends it more on things that Initiative 502 says it should be spent on,” he said.
The 2012 ballot measure legalized recreational marijuana and taxed it for health care and substance-abuse prevention and education.
“The Senate budget took virtually all of it and basically put it toward the general good.”
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
