(The Center Square) – Washington state is overspending its revenue by billions of dollars, but finding out just how many billions has state officials offering up broadly different figures.
During last Thursday’s meeting of the Washington State Board of Education, J. Lee Schultz, SBE’s deputy executive director, provided a brief update on the coming legislative session, which was interrupted by SBE Chair Randy Spalding to say he’d just received a note from Maddy Thompson in the office of Gov. Jay Inslee.
“The note said it’s now been increased to $14 billion,” Spalding said, a reference to the state’s projected operating budget deficit.
“Oh,” responded Schultz, sounding caught off guard. “It’s unfortunate, so okay.”
The Center Square reached out to Inslee’s office to inquire about the $14 billion figure, which had not otherwise been publicly reported.
Inslee spokesman Mike Faulk responded via email to say, “I’m confident whoever made that dubious claim is not an authoritative source.”
Faulk suggested reaching out to the Office of Financial Management for clarification.
OFM Deputy Communications Director Hayden Mackley responded via email: “The projected deficit through fiscal year 2029 is $10-$12 billion when we account for projected revenue, and the projected cost of maintaining services at current levels once caseload forecasts and inflation are factored in (what we call maintenance level in the budget.)”
Thompson, the Inslee staffer who told SBE the deficit is now $14 billion, sent an email later Friday stating she was in error.
“My office corrected me,” Thompson wrote. “I was misunderstanding the maintenance costs. The deficit is $10-12 billion.”
But over the weekend, recently elected Senate Majority Leader Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, added more fuel to the fire when he told Q13, “Unfortunately, the operating budget deficit may be closer to $14 billion over four years.”
Center Square contacted Inslee’s office again Monday morning for clarification on where the $14 billion deficit speculation is coming from.
Inslee’s spokesman again referred questions to OFM.
Hayden Mackley with OFM was asked via email about the comments from Pedersen espousing the $14 billion deficit figure.
“The Legislature may be making their own assumptions and calculations on this, so you’d really need to check with them on that,” he said. “The potential $10-12 billion shortfall over four years that was shared with state agencies in early November was a preliminary number based on maintenance-level requests (the costs of maintaining and preserving services at current levels) and projected revenue.
Mackley continued: “There’s a lot of work that goes into analyzing requests, adjusting assumptions, making changes based on caseload forecasts, and figuring out what policy changes need to happen as well. We’re currently in the process of finalizing Gov. Inslee’s budget proposal. Next week when the governor releases his proposal, we’ll be able to provide greater detail into what the governor’s budget assumes for maintenance-level changes as well as policy-level changes.”
Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, is the ranking Republican on the House Ways & Means Committee.
He told The Center Square by phone Monday that he hadn’t heard the $14 billion figure.
“I could explain the claim of $10 billion, and half of that is new policy and a choice we don’t have to do, and we currently can’t afford,” Braun said. “I have heard no other explanation than that.”
Braun said Inslee’s recent negotiations with state employees add to the deficit.
“Of that $10 billion, a record-setting $4 billion of it is the collective bargaining agreement,” he noted. “I have no problem with paying state employees well, but to be clear, in 38 of 39 counties, state employees are making more than private sector employees, and the idea that we’re going to consider raising taxes so that we can pay state employees more and take more money from the private sector should be a non-starter for most people.”
Braun said the state doesn’t have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem.
“We need to look at ways to find savings that protect our taxpayers but also deliver services that are critical and we can do that,” he said.
Pedersen and his legislative aide did not respond to a request for comment, but a communications director for Senate Democrats responded via email late Monday.
“I checked in with Pedersen, and he said that after discussions with OFM, nonpartisan legislative staff, and others, the most accurate number is $11B,” Aaron Wasser wrote.
“Frankly, this sort of thing happens basically every year around this time as everyone is gathering info while writing budgets (one of the challenges of projecting two and four years out.) It’s part of the process. Assumptions are constantly evolving as everyone gets more information about revenue, caseloads, collective bargaining agreements, etc.”
