FUNNY BUSINESS ABOUNDS in Olympia, but legislators aren’t having fun as their budget-balancing game moves into overtime.
The Democrat-dominated Senate and House have agreed with Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire on the need to raise taxes, but they remain as deeply divided over which taxes to raise as tax hike advocates are over how to spend the revenue.
Bizarre schemes touted as budget cuts threaten to disrupt social services and natural resources management functions while saving few, if any, dollars.
Reflecting an urban disconnect regarding all things outdoorsy, the Department of Fish and Wildlife — an unhappy amalgam of once-separate Fisheries and Game departments — may be swallowed up by the state’s timber and tidelands manager, the Department of Natural Resources.
Continuing last year’s redefining of the Department of Commerce — formerly Commerce, Trade and Economic Development — threatens to toss multiple programs into the Social and Health Services hopper.
Juvenile drug courts, community mobilization, developmental disabilities and various housing programs including those serving independent youth, mentally ill individuals and people with AIDS/HIV are among the items that could be dumped on an already overstressed DSHS.
Crime victims’ assistance could move from Commerce to either DSHS or Labor & Industries.
Other transfers could shift the Emergency Food Program to the Department of Agriculture and the Long Term Care Ombudsman to the Office of Financial Management.
Some of these programs face funding cuts of 30 percent to 60 percent, or will be virtually unfunded or eliminated, according to a 53-page analysis quickly assembled by Laurie Lippold of the Children’s Home Society of Washington.
Programs remaining at Commerce, such as low-income weatherization, also face sharply reduced funding.
Bizarrely, as the Legislature rushes to slash the state Housing Trust Fund and other programs that effectively work to end homelessness, urban advocates for homeless communities demanded — and both chambers of the Legislature passed — legislation that essentially preserves homelessness.
House Bill 1956 protects temporary encampments of homeless persons on property owned or controlled by host religious organizations.
Tent camps are not part of the homelessness response strategy in Jefferson or Clallam counties, where ending homelessness is the goal. (One Carlsborg-area church has sporadically hosted a lone woman who refuses housing assistance.)
Also passing both legislative chambers and awaiting Gov. Gregoire’s signature are the two non-budgetary bills mentioned in my March 8 column, “Legislature Designing Herd of ‘Camels.'”
On the positive side, House Bill 2752 increases to 72 hours the time allowed before licensed youth shelters must notify parents that their child has been admitted.
The change from an eight-hour notification window should enable Vine Street Cottage in Port Angeles to reach its potential for getting young runaways off the streets.
Operated by my employer, Serenity House of Clallam County, the Cottage can shelter a minor for up to 14 days, making time for family reunification, if possible, or other safe long-term living arrangements.
While unanimously passing HB 2752, the Senate proposes defunding outreach to homeless youth living on the streets.
A Senate amendment to House Bill 2935 further eroded Rep. Kevin Van De Wege’s attempt to streamline the growth management hearings appeal process.
Van De Wege, D-Sequim, had proposed a uniform, 30-day window for all environmental appeals, but the Senate amendment preserves the 60-day appeal period for challenges to local shorelines and growth management code changes.
HB 2935 administratively consolidates the Growth Management Hearings Boards into the environmental hearings office, effective July 1, 2011, and allows the governor to reduce the boards from nine full-time to as few as six part-time members, if appeal volume falls.
Incumbents’ jobs are protected at salaries set by the governor, as the bill allows reductions only by attrition, voluntary resignation or retirement.
In Olympia, as in Washington, D.C., Democratic majorities are finding that every partisan’s dream of winning total control can be a nightmare with no fun in sight.
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Martha Ireland was a Clallam County commissioner from 1996 through 1999 and is the secretary of the Republican Women of Clallam County., among other community endeavors.
She and her husband, Dale, live on a Carlsborg-area farm.
Her column appears Fridays.
E-mail her at irelands@olypen.com.
