By Bill Lucia | Editor
Washington’s Department of Enterprise Services isn’t well known outside the world of state government, but the agency has 900 employees and a $280 million operating budget. Duties include managing state facilities, including the Capitol complex, and overseeing various construction projects. Last week, department leadership let staff know that DES’ director, Matt Jones, had gone on leave and that the chief operations officer would step in as interim director. Both the agency and the governor’s office were mum on Monday about the circumstances.
Also in today’s edition…
Washington’s fight with Albertsons over the grocer’s role in the opioid crisis.
Gov. Bob Ferguson pitches a plan to boost FAFSA completion rates.
And, a measure to undo Idaho’s strict abortion ban is headed for the ballot.
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By Jerry Cornfield
Jones has held the top job at the Department of Enterprise Services for about a year and is a member of Gov. Bob Ferguson’s executive cabinet. While his leave is still unexplained, a department spokesperson said Monday evening, “There have been no allegations or evidence of criminal wrongdoing.”
(Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
By Jake Goldstein-Street
Washington is arguing in court that Albertsons pharmacies ignored red flags in dispensing hundreds of millions of opioid pills, fueling an addiction crisis that has killed thousands of people in the state. A trial began in the case on Monday in King County Superior Court. “Pharmacies are supposed to be the last line of defense against potent addictive medication being misused or diverted into the illegal drug market,” Kelsey Endres, from Attorney General Nick Brown’s office, said in an opening statement.
Albertsons’ lawyers argue that store pharmacies were filling prescriptions that doctors approved based on guidelines at the time. “The pharmacist’s role is not to reexamine patients,” said attorney Enu Mainigi. “Without a doctor’s prescription, the gate does not open. So when doctors wrote more prescriptions, pharmacies like ours received more prescriptions to be filled.” In April, the grocery chain agreed to pay $774 million to settle similar lawsuits filed across the country.
By Aspen Ford
High school seniors would need to complete student aid paperwork to graduate, under a proposal Gov. Bob Ferguson plans to push for in the next legislative session. If students didn’t want to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, they could sign an agreement to opt out. Ferguson has made improving FAFSA completion rates a priority during his time in office. Washington’s rate ranked 47th among states last year, improving to 40th this year. “Let’s be honest. Fortieth is not gonna get the job done,” Ferguson said, announcing his proposal yesterday. Some school officials have raised concerns about the cost of adding the graduation requirement.
Volunteers pass boxes of signatures supporting a ballot initiative to end Idaho’s strict ban on abortion on July 2, outside the Capitol in Boise. (Photo by Abigail Gerstein/Idaho Capital Sun)
By Laura Guido and Clark Corbin
A voter initiative seeking to end Idaho’s strict abortion ban has officially qualified to appear on ballots in November, Idahoans United for Women and Families, the group leading the effort, announced Monday. Idahoans United said more than 1,250 volunteers helped collect 110,000 signatures for the measure, and people from all of the state’s 44 counties signed the initiative’s petition. The initiative would take a simple majority of votes in the Nov. 3 general election to become law.
ICYMI
A year and $80K later, a probe of WA fish and wildlife commissioners continues | by Jerry Cornfield
Six months in, WA has paid unemployment to more than 100 striking workers | by Jake Goldstein-Street
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