Gordon Forgey: Special session trims budget. . . kind of

A special session in Olympia was called to balance the state budget. The legislature was tasked with cutting about $1.4 billion.

The session will end this week, but the goal will not be met. Only $480 million will be trimmed.

The measure for these cuts was overwhelmingly passed in the House. As of this writing, it still needs to be passed in the Senate. Then, if approved, it will go to the governor for signing.

This special session was intended to solve the state’s financial crisis, but the real work is still ahead. Optimists say the budget work will be completed when the legislature returns fresh and revitalized in January. At least, they say, they have a jump on it now.

The cuts from this special session, similar to other rounds of cuts in the past, involve some financial chicanery and savings that really are not savings but only accounting adjustments or delayed payments. The state is even sucking up unclaimed property to help make ends meet.

The bulk of the budget balancing remains to be done.

Still, after such scrutiny and so many years of budget imbalance, very little has been done to address the structural problems at the state.

The state lumbers on. Legislators and managers wring their hands, but nobody is ready to get them dirty with the real work that is necessary.

About the special session, one representative is quoted as saying, “we tried, kind of.”

One day, the economy will turn around. People will go back to work, and tax revenues will grow. The demands for social services will lessen, and schools will get the resources they need for academics.

When this happens, Washingtonians will look back. They may remember how their state government and elected officials failed them by contributing to the hard times with years of profligate spending. They may remember how government failed them in handling the crisis by not doing the hard work of rethinking and reshaping the government when the opportunity existed to do so.

Or, then again, they may just remember what all the spin doctors said. They will soon be coming home from Olympia to enlighten us.

Gordon Forgey

Publisher