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There is a budget deal. How much will that budget spend? What taxes will be raised? How will decades of education policy be changed to comply with a State Supreme Court ruling?
What, you want transparent government? Don't you know they have to pass the budget first for us to know what's in?
What could possibly go wrong with this type of brinkmanship budgeting? According to one lawmaker as reported by the Seattle Times:
“I suspect there will be a bunch of things that are just errors and that we’re gonna have to fix in the supplemental, and hopefully they won’t screw up too many lives in the meantime."
I don't know about you but I'm tired of being told to prepare for ludicrous speed lawmaking.
Now that lawmakers have reached a budget agreement they should consider acting on a temporary budget to avoid a government shutdown while still providing the public an opportunity to review and comment on the proposed 2017-19 budget and various tax changes and other policies before it is adopted.
Going forward there are several reforms that should be adopted to avoid this type of situation again. They include using something like the Utah base budget process at the beginning of session, acting on legislative transparency reforms as proposed by SB 6560 from 2014, and providing the same type of negotiating transparency to the budget that our state public labor contracts should follow (COIN or Civic Openness in Negotiations).
Additional Information
Seattle Times: Washington state budget secrecy - ‘I don’t think any of us knows what is truly in this’
Spokesman Review: Budget passed with an unconscionable secrecy, haste
Seattle Times: Washington lawmakers, this is no way to run a state
Walla Walla Union Bulletin: State budget process should be open to public
Olympian: Memo to lawmakers - Do your deals in the open
Budget reforms are needed to end the threat of state government shut-downs
