By Bill Lucia | Editor
Welcome back to the Daily Standard's weekend edition, where we recap some of the week's top stories.
Quote of the week: “A ‘business as usual’ approach will not meet the need of this moment.”
That’s Gov. Bob Ferguson’s budget director, K.D. Chapman-See delivering downbeat instructions in a Friday memo to state agency directors as they prepare spending requests for the upcoming two-year budget cycle. Chapman-See warns it “will likely be the most challenging budget any of us has yet faced.”
“There will be significant budget shortfalls next biennium in both operating and transportation budgets,” she wrote. Chapman-See added: “This year’s revenue forecasts will likely not provide sufficient support for the maintenance of current programs, let alone any expansions.” She emphasized that it’s still unclear exactly how large a gap the governor and lawmakers will be trying to solve.
Agencies will have until Sept. 14 to submit their budget requests to the Office of Financial Management. Chapman-See told them they should plan to pause the phase-in of most new programs and not propose new ones.
Ferguson is asking agencies to take a hard look at spending on programs created or expanded after January 2019 (i.e., in the years after the COVID pandemic struck), and areas where “Washington provides particularly high levels of service relative to other states, or is one of only a handful of states that provides a specific service or program.”
Next year’s session will mark the third in a row where Washington lawmakers will confront significant deficits. The first year, the solution involved cuts and a sizable tax package. This year’s fix relied on rainy day savings, a variety of one-time maneuvers, and reductions in child care funding.
A visualization of where money goes in the state operating budget. The supplemental budget approved this year pushed 2025-27 spending levels to around $79.4 billion. Click the image for a larger version. (Courtesy of Senate Committee Services and Legislative Support Services)
The state’s two-year operating budget is now checking in near $80 billion. Republicans (and, more recently, former Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire) have criticized the growth in recent years under the Democrat-led state government. The two-year operating budget signed into law in 2017 was around $43.7 billion.
Chapman-See, in her memo, highlights steep price inflation and 14.2% population growth in the state between 2015 and 2025 as underlying factors driving up costs. Whatever the reasons, a reckoning is on the horizon as lawmakers run short on one-time budget maneuvers they can turn to. At some point, spending and revenue will need to be aligned — either with cuts or tax increases. A surprise surge in the economy is a wild card that could change the situation. But there are no signs of one at the moment.
Spending trends in the state’s operating budget since 2016. (via fiscal.wa.gov)
What about the income tax? Chapman-See notes that the revenue from it will not be available until the second half of the upcoming budget cycle, and that about 42% of the money it is expected to generate will go to tax relief provisions embedded in the tax law. And, as we’ve noted previously, anticipated “maintenance level” growth is on track to burn up much of the revenue that’s left over. Plus, the tax faces court challenges and a likely ballot initiative this year that could result in it being overturned.
Gov. Bob Ferguson shakes hands with Sen. June Robinson, chair of the Ways and Means committee, after signing the state’s operating budget on May 20, 2025, during his first year in office. (Photo by Jacquelyn Jimenez Romero/Washington State Standard)
Ferguson began his time as governor in a period of fiscal stress, confronting a budget gap pegged in the ballpark of $16 billion over four years. As he looks toward his third year on the job, it’s clear that financial difficulties — and how he chooses to deal with them — will become a defining feature of his term. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers, particularly those on the party’s left flank, are approaching a fork where they’ll have to decide whether to make further cuts that many of them oppose, or to continue testing the public’s tolerance for higher fees and taxes.
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Trees in the “Tree Well” timber sale in the Elwha Watershed. (Photo courtesy of Scott McGee/Elwha Legacy Forests Coalition)
By Aspen Ford
Three environmental groups are suing to block the logging of nearly 400 acres of state forestland in Washington’s Elwha Watershed.
Filed Monday in Clallam County Superior Court, the lawsuit against the state’s Department of Natural Resources argues the agency failed to adequately assess the environmental harm of two timber sales, known as “Parched” and “Tree Well.” Logging the land would pose a “direct threat” to Port Angeles’ drinking water, which is sourced solely from the Elwha River, the lawsuit contends.
Under the Department of Natural Resources’ standards, only trees that predate 1850 are considered old growth and set aside for conservation. The oldest stands proposed for harvest in the Parched sale are around 140 years old, dating back only to the 1880s. Both sales include stands more than 100 years old.
The Board of Natural Resources approved the two timber sales in a 4-2 vote in November 2024, before Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove took office.
Murphy Company, a family-owned logging operation that specializes in making products with older timber, purchased the two tracts for $6.8 million. An attorney for Murphy indicated the company wouldn’t start cutting the trees until October.
By Jonathan Shorman
The U.S. Senate rejected the SAVE America Act on Thursday, dealing a blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to impose voting restrictions ahead of the November midterm elections.
Senators voted 48-50 against advancing an amendment that would have incorporated Trump’s top legislative priority into an immigration-focused spending bill. The vote offered the clearest sign yet that, despite pressure from the president, a handful of Republican senators continue to resist advancing the bill.
The SAVE America Act would require voters to offer documents, such as a birth certificate or passport, proving their citizenship when registering to vote. It would also mandate voters show photo ID when casting a ballot and restrict where voters can register, effectively eliminating voter registration drives.
Where’s the governor?
On Wednesday, he was at the Pride Flag raising at the state Capitol. “When I think about my job as Governor, really at the most core level, especially these days, I really think of my job as my ultimate responsibility is doing everything I can, given what’s going on back in Washington, D.C., to do everything in my power to uphold our values as a state,” Ferguson said. “To uphold the dignity of everybody in Washington state, to defend everybody's rights in the face of the attacks that we see every single day.”
The day before, he appeared via pre-recorded video message, sitting on a couch along with at least one of his cats, speaking to the state’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, advisory board. Ferguson said he plans to propose a bill for next year’s session that will make it a high school graduation requirement that students either fill out the FAFSA or opt out of doing so. He’s seized on the issue of improving the state’s FAFSA completion rates, which have been among the lowest in the country.
Gov. Bob Ferguson speaks to the state’s FAFSA Campaign Advisory Board in a pre-recorded video on Tuesday, June 2, with at least one of his cats. (Screenshot via TVW)
Ferguson’s public calendar shows daily weekday briefings on the Longview mill accident scheduled between Monday and this coming Wednesday. And schedule documents obtained via public records request show that on May 29, he had a call with Microsoft President Brad Smith.
IN OTHER NEWS…
Let’s Go Washington said mid-week it has collected at least 165,000 of the more than 300,000 signatures it needs to get an initiative on the ballot that aims to repeal the state’s income tax on millionaire earners.
A 21-year-old man faces multiple charges after allegedly vandalizing the state Capitol building in Olympia Thursday morning, using big rocks and his fists to smash several windows and damage entry doors, police said.
Boarded up windows at the Capitol that were damaged during a vandalism incident this week. (Photo by Jerry Cornfield/Washington State Standard)
Washington’s rural counties saw the largest drops in insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act after the Republican-controlled Congress failed to extend subsidies that helped consumers afford the plans.
Electric utilities in Washington and Oregon are turning to natural gas to meet growing energy demand from data centers, according to two new reports.
Ferguson is rejecting a lead Republican’s proposal to temporarily suspend Washington’s cap-and-trade program to decrease prices at the pump.
The state of Washington on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to accept a challenge against the state’s political maps, then remand it to a lower court to determine if the way the lines were drawn complies with a recent ruling in a Louisiana case.
Following the chemical tank implosion that killed 11 people at a mill in Longview, Washington, the plant’s owner said Wednesday it would pay employees at least until early August even if stoppages at the damaged facility prevent them from working.
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