Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Initiative 1033 will hurt kids

When you open your ballot this fall, you'll be asked to vote on Tim Eyman's latest bad idea: Statewide Initiative 1033. You may find yourself tempted to check the yes box - the way it's written it looks enticing. But I-1033 is a very bad idea, such a bad idea that we at the Children's Alliance have joined a broad coalition to fight and defeat it.

If passed, initiative 1033 will hurt kids in Washington State for years to come.

This year Washington faced a devastating budget deficit in the middle of a terrible recession. Right now across the state, teachers are getting laid off, soaring numbers of adults are losing health insurance, and little kids are waiting for early learning programs while their preschool years pass them by. If I-1033 passes this slashed budget will be locked in as the baseline, and force future cuts.

I-1033 limits the growth in revenue each year for state, county, and city general funds. It sets an arbitrary formula based on the cost of inflation plus population growth. It will leave no room to cover unanticipated costs like natural disasters. You can read great coverage of the damaging potential of I-1033 on Schmudget, the blog of the Washington Budget and Policy Center.

The most vulnerable people will suffer the most if I-1033 passes, but everyone will feel the pain. Just read the box to the right to learn a little of what happened when a similar initiative passed in Colorado.

We're all counting on our state climbing out of this recession. If I-1033 passes, we'll have a much, much, steeper climb. The worst of times in Washington would become the best that we can hope for, and kids will suffer.

Together we can and we will defeat I-1033. Here's what you can do.

1.
Send this message to 10 people you know. Recent polls show that most people don't know much about Initiative 1033, but that when they hear that it's sponsored by Tim Eyman, and learn how it will affect education, health care and the state budget, they decide to vote no.

2.
Sign the pledge to vote no at the No on Initiative 1033 website.

3.
Vote no on I-1033 in the November election.

You can make the difference in this campaign. Please share this message today. Thank you for speaking up for kids.

Sincerely,

Jon Gould, Deputy Director
800.854.KIDS x19



Dear Jamie,

Initiative 1033 is a proven failure. A similar initiative passed in Colorado in 1992. Here's what happened:

* Funding for K-12 education plummeted, dropping Colorado to 49th in the nation in education funding.

* The proportion of low-income children who lack health insurance in Colorado doubled, as it declined nationwide.

* At one point Colorado had to suspend the requirement
that children had to be fully immunized before enrolling in school, because there were not enough state funds to buy vaccine.

The situation was so bad that in 2005 voters put the law on hold so their state could recover. Dozens of other states have defeated similar initiatives at the ballot - because it's a bad idea. Learn more.

Second Podcast in "Guardianships & Alternatives to Guardianship" Series

Second Podcast in "Guardianships & Alternatives to Guardianship" Series

Today the Informing Families Building Trust is releasing the second in its three-part series on Guardianship and Alternatives to Guardianship.

Guardianship is an important issue that needs to be addressed, but often families assume (incorrectly) that total guardianship is their only available option.

This segment of the series provides more information about the many options to full guardianship that individuals and families may want to consider instead of total guardianship.

The third segment in this series will focus on the guardianship process.

If you missed the first part in the series, you can still view it from our website or go directly to the videos at YouTube.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Washington’s $9 billion balancing act

Washington’s $9 billion balancing act

How the Legislature closed a historic budget shortfall—without raising taxes

As vice chairman of the budget writing Ways and Means Committee, I had the dubious honor this session of playing the point for the Senate in the Legislature’s efforts to write a new, two-year operating budget. It amounted to being awarded a front row seat to a game with no winners.

Before it was over we found ourselves plugging a void in our state budget larger than any the state has seen since at least the Great Depression. We did so in large part by cutting government services deeper than any of us wanted to. And, defying past practices during such downturns, we balanced the budget without raising taxes.

This is the story of how we got into this mess and

how we started to pull ourselves out of it.

An economic storm blows in

Some will argue the investments we’ve made in recent years to bolster early learning, support the beginnings of all-day kindergarten and provide health insurance for poor children drove our budget shortfall. But the record shows something far different.

Thanks in part to a prolonged housing boom, Washington’s economy outlasted much of the rest of the country allowing the state to enjoy healthy budget surpluses well into 2008. But the economic storm that would ultimately shower red ink across 45 other states finally began creeping across our borders.

Credit markets froze nationally. Consumer spending slowed to a crawl. Unemployment began to creep up, then leap up. Home foreclosures climbed to historic highs.

The drop in consumer spending proved particularly damaging in Washington, a state that derives a little more than half (52%) its revenue from the retail sales tax. In September, the state’s forecast of anticipated tax collections plummeted by more than $500 million. In November it fell again — this time by a whopping $1.9 billion.

At the same time, demand for state services was climbing. In December more than 90,000 Washington residents applied for unemployment benefits, an all time record.

That month the governor unveiled a cuts-laden budget proposal to close what was then a $6.1 billion budget shortfall. In time, these would come to be referred to as the good old days.

Legislature convenes dreary session

There was nothing happy about the new year that dawned for lawmakers when the Legislature convened its 105 day session on Jan. 12. We were acutely aware that many tough decisions lie ahead, that many of us would have to support tearing down a standard of service that we’d spent legislative careers building. But the worst was yet to come.

I immediately began meeting three nights a week with a small group of select budget staffers and, sometimes, a fellow senator or two to pour over the budget. After a full day of legislative meetings, hearings and floor sessions we’d retreat to a conference room on the third floor of the Senate office building for three hours or more. At first we reviewed each functional area of the budget in detail. Later we graduated to deciding upon actual cuts.

On Feb. 13, just one month and one day after the Legislature convened, the Senate approved a series of administrative cuts to come up with our first $735 million in savings.

When it was sent to the governor’s desk five days later it was the earliest any Washington Legislature had approved steep budget cuts in modern history.

It was a good thing, too, because a month later a new forecast of tax collections added another $2.9 billion to our budget shortfall, pushing it to a previously unthinkable $9 billion, or about a quarter of our operating budget. Incredibly, in a span of just four months, $4.8 billion in anticipated tax revenue had evaporated into thin air, burned off by a flaming recession.

This proved particularly challenging for myself and budget writers in the House because close to half our budget was either legally or practically off limits for cuts. About 7 percent of our operating budget is dedicated to paying off construction debt for university buildings, schools, prisons and facilities at other state institutions. Those payments can’t be skipped.

Also untouchable was funding to support core education programs protected by our state constitution. And there was funding for other unprotected education programs and some medical programs that draw federal matching dollars that no one was eager to cut.

This would mean that what was left of the budget would have to shoulder a massive burden.

Solving the problem

To our great fortune, the Obama administration stepped up and provided $3 billion in stimulus dollars that greatly helped mitigate the cuts we had to make to state services. The budget we sent to the governor’s desk also assumed $1.5 billion in use of reserves and fund shifts — most notably one from our state’s construction budget that left us with fewer construction projects funded for the next two years.

But by far the single largest component to our budget balancing strategy was $4.3 billion in deep cuts to valued government services. Individual cuts are far too numerous to list. In the health care and mental health component of our budget alone there were 39 cuts of at least $1 million. But consider some of our biggest cuts.

• As many as 8,000 public employees, including some teachers, will lose their jobs. Management employees will have their salaries frozen and $449 million was saved by reducing pension contributions.

• Suspending two voter approved initiatives to reduce class sizes and provide teachers with a cost-of-living pay raise saved almost $1 billion.

• Some $557 million was saved by slashing state college and university budgets by 17 percent. Some of that will be made up with tuition increases ranging from 7 percent at community colleges to 14 percent at Washington State University and the University of Washington in each of the next two years. But the cuts required will eliminate 9,000 enrollment slots statewide from our colleges and universities.

• More than $255 million was saved by removing subsidized health insurance for 40,000 among the working poor. To save hundreds of millions more we slashed funding for hospitals, nursing homes and local health districts and assistance to those who are unemployable due to a physical or mental disability.

Again, these are just a sampling of some of the biggest cuts. In truth, virtually every functional area of state government took a hit.

But as much as there is to dislike about this budget, I can say that our approach was judicious and forward thinking.

We focused on saving prevention programs, such as some health care programs, that can head off higher costs in an emergency room at a later date.

We also favored programs that appear to be most sustainable well into the future. We maintained a safety net, albeit a smaller one, to provide for our most vulnerable citizens. And we left a healthy budget reserve — about $750 million — to help us weather any aftershocks of the economic earthquake that has rattled our state and nation.

Let’s hope our economy continues to improve, so that we never have to make this

level of cuts to such core, vital services again.

NCD wants your input

NCD Wants Input on Issues Affecting Lives of People with Disabilities

The National Council on Disability (NCD) is gathering public input for a study of emerging issues and trends affecting the lives of people with disabilities. Information gathered will be used in the development of NCD's next annual progress report to the President and Congress, National Disability Policy: A Progress Report, which is required by Section 401(b) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Please send your input by September 15, 2009. Comments can be emailed to ncd@ncd.gov. Type "Emerging Trends" in the subject line. This link opens a Word document.

The National Council on Disability recently released a 500 page report titled “Effective Emergency Management: Making Improvements for Communities and People with Disabilities.” The report contains an Executive Summary and a Summary of Key Findings. The report was submitted to the President and can be found here