SEQUIM — It was the longest legislative session in the history of the state, said state Rep. Steve Tharinger.
But the Sequim Democrat believes the lengthy process resulted in legislation beneficial to the North Olympic Peninsula.
“We just finished our session right around the first of July,” Tharinger told about 60 people at this week’s Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce luncheon at SunLand Golf & Country Club.
“The bad news is it took a long time. The good news is I think we worked out what is a very good budget for the state of Washington.”
Tharinger — along with Rep. Kevin Van De Wege, a fellow Sequim Democrat, and Sen. Jim Hargrove, a Hoquiam Democrat — represents the 24th District, which covers Clallam and Jefferson counties and a portion of Grays Harbor County.
The state Legislature went into triple overtime as it worked on raising the gas tax to pay for transportation projects across the state, cut college tuition and put more money toward the state’s education system, and narrowly averted a state shutdown by passing a budget at the last minute.
It finished after meeting for 176 days.
Accomplishments Tharinger cited included progress in funding for kindergarten-through-12th-grade public education, a reduction in tuition at both junior colleges and four-year universities, and more resources to encourage doctors to practice in rural areas such as the Peninsula.
“We are making record investments into education, both at the K-12 level and at the higher education community college level, and also in early learning,” Tharinger said.
“Part of that was driven by the McCleary case.”
In the McCleary decision — which carries the name of Sequim native Stephanie McCleary, a Chimacum school classified employee and parent — state Supreme Court justices ruled lawmakers were not meeting their constitutional responsibility to fully pay for basic K-12 education and relying too much on local tax-levy dollars to balance the education budget.
“This year, we have been [found] in contempt by the state Supreme Court for not doing our paramount duty and amply funding public education,” Tharinger said.
In response, $1.3 billion was earmarked for K-12 education as part of the budgeting process, he said.
“The Legislature has submitted their answer to the court, and I think with the funding . . . a lot of that will go to teachers’ salaries, it will go to smaller class sizes for K-3 — the most important place to have smaller class size.”
The increase in funding will lead to “huge savings across the board as far as cost to the state for corrections and criminal justice or other things that might happen if kids don’t get a good degree or good education,” Tharinger said.
Tharinger also noted a decrease in tuition charged to students attending both junior college and state universities.
Gov. Jay Inslee in early July signed Senate Bill 5954, which will cut four-year college tuition by 5 percent this fall, then another 10 percent to 15 percent in fall 2016, according to The Associated Press.
“One of the things that sort of kept us in Olympia for a while is the Senate was interested in providing a tuition cut for four-year schools, which I think is a good plan,” Tharinger said.
But the original Senate proposal actually increased the tuition for junior college students, he said, which account for about 60 percent of college students in the state.
“Part of the negotiation was, how do we help community colleges?” Tharinger said.
“In the end . . . instead of a 25 percent tuition cut for just Washington State University and University of Washington, we provided a 5 percent tuition cut across the board for all students in Washington, and that cut will increase to 10 for the two-year schools.”
That means students pursuing associate degrees will see a $500 cut in their costs, while baccalaureate program students will see a $1,500 cut to their tuition, Tharinger said.
He went on to speak about the lack of adequate access to doctors on the Peninsula.
“This is a huge issue for us in rural Washington: to provide health care,” Tharinger said.
“There [are] challenges on our reimbursement rates with Medicaid and Medicare. We have a very high population percentage for both of those programs, and it is very hard . . . for us to maintain good providers in that area.”
The issue isn’t the amount of new doctors graduating from medical school but being able to attract them to the Peninsula.
“There are a number of graduates that are coming out of medical schools, but there is a shortage in funding for the residencies,” he said.
“It costs about $140,000 to $150,000 a year to provide the training for a resident [doctor], and that is a three-year program. What we need is funding for these residencies.”
Tharinger cited data indicating that “where a doctor does his or her residency is where they will end up serving and opening their practice,” he said.
“So we had quite a bit of negotiation and were able to” earmark about $16 million for residencies throughout the state, he said.
He said Family Medicine of Port Angeles “is one of the clinics that is licensed and certified to provide residency, so we are hoping that funding will come to Port Angeles and we will be able to get some doctors to do their residencies here on the Peninsula.
“Hopefully then, once they come here,” they will stay.
“But we’ve got to have the money to get them here,” he said.
“That was one of the pieces that we are trying to do to address this health care shortage, this provider shortage, that exists here on the Peninsula.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
