Tag Archives: capital-budget

Legislature Adjourns

Greetings Friends and Neighbors,

The Legislature is scheduled to adjourn the 2024 session today. With most major policy bills voted on by both the House and Senate, they’ll be finishing the process and heading to the Governor’s Office for final consideration.

On this final day, the Legislature approved an updated, supplemental operating budget and minor changes to the state’s transportation spending plan.

Regarding the operating budget, state spending will increase by just over $2 billion. The Senate’s proposal was much more conservative than the original House proposal, but the majority budget negotiators moved toward a compromise that was ultimately closer to the House’s position in overall spending.

The budget continues strong investments in K-12 education, behavioral health, and health care. Our Senate Republican Caucus principles have been clear that we are focused on rebooting education, restoring public safety, and returning affordability to our state. While spending is at higher levels than I would like, I’m glad that many of those priorities are included, such as funding to combat drug trafficking and hiring more law enforcement and support for victims.

We fought to include more investments in special education and funding parity for school choice. I’m disappointed that our policy to help students with chronic absenteeism was not funded in this budget.

While not perfect, the budget reflects an honest, bipartisan approach. I voted in support of the final operating budget and worked to secure a proviso that reflected legislation I sponsored, Senate Bill 5517. This will help implement the recommendations of the Legislature’s Water Mitigation Task Force and brings together stakeholders to address water rights issues.

My Senate Republican Colleagues and I fought hard to stop new taxes and were successful. As I mentioned in previous newsletters, you will get a say this November on the issue of tax relief when the 3 remaining initiatives to the Legislature are on the ballot.

It is an honor to serve as your state senator.

Sen. Judy Warnick

Three Initiatives Remain

Historic. Over 2 million signatures were collected by citizens to put 6 initiatives to the Legislature. Early on it seemed that the Democratic majority would not budge on these proposals, but with mounting public pressure, 3 of them ended up being approved.

In the final days of the session, the Legislature passed I-2081, which supports parental rights in education, I-2111, which bans an income tax in Washington State, and I-2113, which restores law enforcement’s ability to pursue suspected criminals.

Click here for more information on the remaining initiatives that you’ll have an opportunity to vote on in this November’s general election.

Legislature approves my bill expanding public-private partnerships on state-managed lands

Senate Bill 5785 would allow the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to enter into longer-term agreements with charitable organizations to help maintain and protect the over 1 million acres it manages.

Stewardship of our state’s forests and natural resources is a shared responsibility and a pretty big task. My legislation harnesses the passion of volunteers to help preserve those resources for future generations.

Click here to read more.

Investing in our community

In the final week of the 2024 legislative session, the Legislature adopted the state’s 2024 supplemental capital budget, which makes critical community infrastructure investments around the state. Funding things like parks, community centers, libraries, and school construction, My House seatmates and I worked to secure over $26 million in this year’s allocation for our three-county district.

Major themes from the state’s investment focus on directing resources for school construction, boosting behavioral health facilities, and addressing the state’s affordable housing challenges.

This year’s proposal I think reflects the needs of the people in our district and around the state. We know that our school buildings need ever-increasing maintenance, facilities to treat struggling Washingtonians are desperately needed and so are affordable housing options. This budget makes targeted investments with the limited resources we have.

Click here to read more.

13th District legislators support community infrastructure investments

In the final week of the 2024 legislative session, 13th District lawmakers are lauding passage of the state’s 2024 supplemental capital budget, which makes critical community infrastructure investments around the state. Funding things like parks, community centers, libraries, and school construction, Senator Judy Warnick and Representatives Tom Dent and Alex Ybarra worked to secure over $26 million in this year’s allocation for the three-county district.

Major themes from the state’s investment focus on directing resources for school construction, boosting behavioral health facilities, and addressing the state’s affordable housing challenges.

“This year’s proposal I think reflects the needs of the people in our district and around the state,” said Warnick, R-Moses Lake, who was a lead negotiator of the budget for the Senate Republicans. “We know that our school buildings need ever-increasing maintenance, facilities to treat struggling Washingtonians are desperately needed and so are affordable housing options. This budget makes targeted investments with the limited resources we have.”

Warnick championed community projects for healthcare facilities in Moses Lake, securing $72,000 for the Community Health Center and $72,000 for the Ellensburg Community Fieldhouse.

“These district-funded projects highlight our dedication to tackling important community development initiatives and improving infrastructure. Working alongside my colleagues to bring real results back to our constituents has truly been an honor,” Rep. Alex Ybarra, R-Quincy said.

Other notable investments include:

$258,000 for the Columbia Basin Rodeo Association Bleachers
$100,000 for remodeling of KVH Surgical Services Clinic
$309,000 for upgrades at the Port of Quincy Business & Event Center

13th District lawmakers also worked to boost the state’s water infrastructure with a $5.5 million investment in Odessa, Washington.

“This supplemental spending plan balances needs and priorities across Washington state, while investing in projects that benefit the 13th District,” said Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake. “It includes infrastructure improvements in many areas, but I am especially pleased about the funding for the Columbia River Water Supply Development Program in Odessa.”

A complete list of 13th District projects can be found by clicking here.

13th District lawmakers support strong state capital investments

With just one day left in the 2021 legislative session, 13th District legislators gave their approval to a new two-year spending plan for capital projects around the state. Sen. Judy Warnick and Representatives Tom Dent and Alex Ybarra worked together to garner nearly $10 million in critical community projects for the 4-county district, in addition to over $80 million in other infrastructure improvements for schools, parks, and environmental projects.

For several years, Warnick had previously served as a lead Capital Budget negotiator in the Senate. While no longer in that role, she remains on the broader budget committee that oversees fiscal matters. Along with Dent and Ybarra, the 13th District team worked hard to ensure the region’s priorities were met.

“The state’s capital budget is an opportunity for us to invest in projects that are critical to our communities,” said Warnick, R-Moses Lake. “There is a lot of demand but only so many resources, so it can be a challenge to prioritize. However, this budget gets it right. The nearly $2 million for the facilities at our community food bank are desperately needed to serve our low-income neighbors, particularly as we are still reeling from the economic impacts of COVID shutdowns.”

The total $6 billion budget includes an historic $413 million investment in broadband internet access around the state, including $258,000 for an agriculture pilot project in the 13th District. Nearly $1 billion is being allocated to K-12 and early education with significant funding for small schools and early learning centers.

“For communities in the 13th District, this budget isn’t simply about reopening and recovery, it’s about long-term renewal,” said Ybarra, R-Quincy. “Strategic investments today mean jobs and a better quality of life tomorrow. That’s what makes this budget exciting news. A wide-range of projects including a healthcare services in Kittitas, public building improvements, like the library in Ephrata, and even a business incubator in Moses Lake, mean generations of residents will benefit from these choices.”

Additional community projects include:

$193,000 for water efficiency improvements in Royal City;
$784,000 to improve the Upper Kittitas County Medic One – Station 99; and
$621,000 in upgrades for the Ephrata Recreation Center.

“This spending plan does a great job of balancing what is needed and addressing priorities in all corners of our state while making local investments that benefit the 13th District,” said Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake. “In our region it funds much-needed community projects and infrastructure improvements related to schools, water, and forest health. I am pleased we were able to pass such a strong bipartisan budget at such a critical time for our economy.”

A complete list of 13th District projects can be found online here.

The Legislature adjourned, Sine Die

March 12, 2018

Greetings from Olympia,

The 2018 legislative session concluded on time, March 8. The short sessions are an opportunity to develop what’s referred to as a supplemental budget. The state budgets on two-year cycles, called a biennial budget, which we adopted last year and takes us through 2019. The supplemental budget is supposed to be an opportunity to make some minor adjustments and tweaks to the budget to meet any emergent needs. However, the majority Democrats had some other ideas. With over $2 billion in unexpected revenue, there was a strong push to spend those resources on growing government.

Early on, we approved a solution for the flawed Hirst decision to allow rural property owners to drill a well. That was a holdover from the 2017 legislative session. If you recall, the state was without a capital budget for a year as we worked through a solution. It was a hard-fought victory for rural Washington that required significant investments through the state’s construction budget to pay for water-related projects. That issue was one of the biggest challenges of my legislative career, but one that my colleagues and I believed had to be addressed, and one that urban legislators paid little attention to. You can read more about the resolution of Hirst by clicking here.

Education and the budget

Although the state Supreme Court agreed that the education funding plan that was approved last year will fulfill our McCleary obligations, they were unhappy with the timeline. They’ve decided that the state should put in about an extra billion dollars one year earlier. Our strong economy and surprise revenue growth have meant we can make that investment on time.

That said, one-party control in Olympia has meant very different budgets for our state. While Republicans resisted urges to raise or create new taxes, the same can’t be said for my colleagues across the aisle. With significant unexpected revenue, I believe that we should have returned that money to the taxpayers in the form of property tax relief.

Many are concerned, and rightly so, about the spike in this year’s property tax bills to fund education. I understand the frustration. The plan that was adopted last year included a prolonged phase-in at the behest of legislative Democrats, which resulted in an overlap and temporary increase in property taxes.

The good news is that we limited how much local dollars can be levied, and the result is more funding to schools, and over 70 percent of property owners will see a net decrease in the property taxes in 2019.

We voted on an education bill in the Senate and tried to adopt an amendment to provide $1 billion in property tax relief, but the majority Democrats voted against it. And again, other proposals diverted $700 million from the voter-approved Rainy Day Fund to direct that money to growing government while providing meager property-tax relief in the year when we don’t need it!

The latest budget approved by the majority continues to put special interests and government growth ahead of struggling citizens. I did not vote for the final supplemental budget as the gimmicks and taxes were unnecessary and sets what the state Treasurer called “a dangerous precedent.”

Investing in our community

In addition to the operating budget, we also approved this year’s supplemental transportation and capital budgets. These provide needed investments in local community projects, as well as improvements to our district’s transportation system. Here are some of the transportation projects that are funded in our district:

Park & Ride improvement at I-90 and Golf Course Road – $21,000
Columbia Basin Railroad Projects – $785,000
County Road Bridge Replacement Study for OGWRP – $100,000
Port of Moses Lake Hangar Expansion Planning & Design – $200,000

You can view the complete list here.

Projects in the supplemental capital budget include:

Roslyn Community and Cultural Center – $523,000
Damman School in Ellensburg – $1.27 million
Fair Safety and Access for Ellensburg and Grant County – $600,000

Click here to see a full list of projects in our district.

It is an honor to serve as your state Senator. Please do not hesitate to reach out to my office with any questions or concerns you may have regarding your state government.

Signature

Judy Warnick,

Your State Senator

Update from Olympia

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Greetings Friends and Neighbors,

We have finished the third week of the 2018 legislative session. Given the short, 60-day time frame, things are moving fast. I am glad that we have finally garnered a significant win for rural Washington on the Hirst, household well issue. Late last week, we approved a compromise bill that the governor has signed. It creates a framework for local control over water resources, plans for the future and importantly provides clarity on permit-exempt wells so that families that simply need water for a home can get it.

The media and urban lawmakers have been displeased about the connection between Hirst and the Capital Budget. Let me be clear, without that linkage, urban lawmakers would have been content with doing nothing to solve this problem. Borrowing money to grow government while rural Washingtonians’ property values plummet and economic development grinds to a halt seemed unfair to taxpayers. With the approval of a Hirst fix, the Capital Budget was also adopted allowing for investment in community projects.

Our caucus knew that some sort of investment would be needed in the Capital Budget to address the fallout from the Hirst decision. We needed a policy before we knew that dollar figure. However, the position of some that there is no connection was disingenuous. The framework that the Democrats unveiled in late December made the connection explicit. Without hundreds of millions of dollars in the Capital Budget, the underlying water policy was void.

You can read my press release on the Hirst fix and Capital Budget by clicking here.

Video Update

Please take a moment to watch my latest video update where I discuss what’s going on in Olympia and what I am working on. Click here or on the image below to watch.

My bills

I have introduced several bills this session ranging from seed certification to funding for agricultural fairs and expanding opportunities for retirement benefits of veterans.

Please click here to see a list of bills that I have sponsored.

It is an honor to serve as your state Senator. Please do not hesitate to reach out to my office with any questions or concerns you may have regarding your state government.

Signature

Judy Warnick,

Your State Senator

Contact Me

Olympia Office:

103 Irv Newhouse Bldg.

P.O. Box 40410

Olympia, WA 98504

Staff:

Legislative Assistant – Breanne Elsey

Session Aide – Charlie Kirry

Intern – Cynthia Banuelos

Olympia Phone:

360.786.7624

District Phone:

509.766.6505

E-mail:

Judith.Warnick@leg.wa.gov

Website:

Click here to visit my website

Hard-fought Hirst compromise reached for rural Washington

Capital budget approved; provides unprecedented support for education

After nearly a year of negotiations, Sen. Judy Warnick, former chair of the Senate’s water-related committee and lead negotiator on the bill to fix the flawed Hirst court decision, believes the compromise deal reached this week by Senate and House negotiators will finally bring needed relief for rural families seeking to drill a small household well.

“It has been an arduous and complex negotiation,” said Warnick, R-Moses Lake. “I believe that the compromise we have reached meets the criteria that I stated at the end of last year, namely that any solution must not be a burden on rural families who simply need water to build a home.”

Sen. Shelly Short, R-Addy, joined Warnick in the negotiation talks.

“We had many hours of meetings that went late into the night over this week,” Short said. “Our stance from the beginning was that we needed a bill that would treat our rural landowners fairly so they can drill water wells on their land. Without water, landowners can’t develop their property. The compromise we reached isn’t a perfect fix to the problem, but it’s a solution that allows locally driven plans with flexibility to develop solutions tailored to meet local needs.”

“It has taken us this long to get here because many in Olympia didn’t take the plight of rural Washington seriously,” Warnick said. “We did what we had to do to represent our constituents and get the attention of urban lawmakers who don’t need to worry about where their water comes from.”

Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6091, sponsored by Sen. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, and Warnick, passed the Senate 35 to 14 and the House of Representatives 66 to 30.

“I’m glad that Senator Van De Wege stepped up and supported our efforts to help rural families,” said Warnick. “This is an example of collaboration among Democrats and Republicans to work for all of Washington.”

Senate Republican leaders had insisted since early April, 2017 that there would be no new capital budget without a long-term remedy for the effects of the Hirst ruling. Adoption of the Hirst fix cleared the way for the Legislature to adopt the state’s capital budget.

“This budget is designed with Washington students in mind,” said Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside and the lead Senate Republican for the capital budget. “It invests an historic level of support for K-12 reforms.

“In addition to education, we prioritize projects that focus on helping meet our state’s mental-health needs, mitigate the damage of environmental disasters and preserve and develop existing properties – all while leaving capacity in the budget to address unforeseen future needs.”

The $4.2 billion spending plan for funding capital assets like school-building construction and mental-health facilities during the 2017-19 biennium, includes a total of more than $1 billion K-12 education-facility construction, renovation or modernization.

The capital budget includes $860 million in total appropriations for higher-education facilities, including $489 million in general-obligation bonds. Of the total spending authority, $433 million would go to the community and technical college system and $428 million to Washington’s public four-year institutions.

The state’s water needs are also an area of emphasis. The budget contains $160 million for flood-control and water-supply projects, and well as $165 million for drinking-water loans and grants, $220 million for the Water Pollution Control Revolving Program and $35 million for the Centennial Clean Water Program. It also contains $300 million for Hirst-related projects.

Mental-health needs, another priority for Senate Republicans, would receive $132 million in the budget. There is approximately $90 million in community behavioral health projects and another approximately $42 million in state hospital projects.

Other highlights of the capital budget include:

$97 million to fund the current Public Works Assistance Account list in its entirety;
$8 million for Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) grants;
Nearly $100 million for affordable housing, including $12 million for innovative housing projects;
$80 million for select Washington Wildlife Recreation Program projects; and
$13 million for forest-hazard reduction.

The capital budget passed the Senate 49-0 and the House 95-1

Warnick vows to continue fight for rural Washington

Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake, sponsor and lead negotiator on the Senate bill overturning the Supreme Court’s Hirst decision and restoring the right of rural property owners to drill household wells, offered the following statement Friday regarding House leaders’ refusal to act on the issue during the 2017 legislative session:

“While I am disappointed that the House leadership chose to leave families without a solution to their water needs, I am committed to continuing the dialogue to find a permanent solution for water availability.

“Access to water is a basic human right, and finding a solution to Hirst that allows families to build on their property with a reliable source of water is not only a necessity — it is a moral obligation for elected officials in this state.

“For weeks, I have been meeting with House Democrats to address their concerns. Our Senate Majority Coalition has put forth compromise solutions over the past several months that respect senior water rights, acknowledge the role tribes play in natural resource management and provide a realistic permanent fix.

“The House offered a proposal to temporarily delay implementation of the Hirst decision, but not only is this legally questionable, it fails to address the real issue – no bank will be willing to lend money on property where no guaranteed source of water is available.

“It is now up to Gov. Jay Inslee and House Democrats to show some leadership, begin negotiating in good faith and vote for a solution. The Senate unanimously approved a capital budget in March and sent a Hirst fix to the House four times. So far, House Democrats have refused to approve our bill or advance any legislation of their own. They have also failed to negotiate in good faith, moving the goal posts at every opportunity. To say the least, negotiations have been challenging, if not frustrating. However, I remain optimistic and ready to work toward a solution.”

Senate capital budget good for schools, jobs and community says Warnick

The state Senate released a bipartisan capital-budget proposal today for 2015-17 which builds over 2,100 classrooms, devotes $60 million to local-government infrastructure projects statewide and maintains and preserves parks and trails. The $3.9 billion plan would fund the construction and maintenance of capital assets across Washington – such as schools and projects with economic-development value.

“The capital budget is an important component for economic development statewide,” said Warnick- R Moses Lake. “This budget puts money toward building schools and make grants available to local governments to boost their economies. I’m glad to support a strong bipartisan proposal that puts our state’s future on the right track.”

With $254 million more directed to public schools than the House proposal, the Senate plan seeks to support student-achievement efforts by building additional classrooms, the largest chunk being aimed at kindergarten through third grade.

“We demonstrated in the operating budget that our kids come first. The capital budget does the same thing. We put nearly half of the funds toward educational projects like investing nearly $1 billion over the next six years to build over 2,100 classrooms for these students.”

All public-works-board list projects are funded through the Senate proposal, which supports local infrastructure and provides family-wage construction jobs.

“We need to make these investments in our communities if our state is going to continue to be successful. Our proposal protects and invests in our natural resources and will insure that our cities and counties have access to resources to grow their economies. That is critical as our state works to bring the economic recovery statewide. This capital budget is good for our schools, jobs, and community,” said Warnick.

The legislation will be a striking amendment to Engrossed House Bill 1115 which received a public hearing at noon today in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

You can click here to view a list of projects and locations that are funded in the Senate’s proposed capital budget.