47th District: Budget, schools top this year’s legislative agenda

For lawmakers from the state’s 47th District, the main focus of the current legislative session will, of course, be the state’s growing budget gap, but issues surrounding education are also taking a priority.

But the primary concern for all elected officials this year is getting under control the state’s budget, which is showing a gap between revenue and expenditures of nearly $7 billion.

“For me, as with all legislators here, we’re really working hard on the budget,” said Sen. Claudia Kauffman, D-Kent.

“It truly is a cloud that is hanging over the entire session,” Rep. Geoff Simpson, D-Kent, said. “And each day it gets worse.”

Simpson said Washington was in better shape than other West Coast states and many other states throughout the country, but difficult times were still ahead.

Kauffman said everyone was working hard and she was confident the budget would be brought under control.

“I feel good,” she said. “Everyone’s working very, very hard on this.”

Kauffman said her top budget priority was transportation funding within the 47th, like improvements to State Route 516 near Wax Road as well as from Witt Road to State Route 169 in Covington.

“I have made these my top priority in transportation,” she said.

Kauffman also added that she was concerned about the governor’s proposed cuts in health-care funding.

“Everything is going to come down to priorities,” Simpson said, adding that he would work to shore up the unemployment system, stimulate the economy and try to make investments and/or cuts where they best make sense.

“People are struggling to pay for health care or just hang on to their house,” he said, adding that there were not any specific local priorities, but instead he was looking at what was best for the region and state.

“What’s good for our district is good for Washington,” he said.

But the budget isn’t the only thing lawmakers are hoping to accomplish this year.

According to Rep. Pat Sullivan, aside from working on the state budget, his main focus will be on passing the Basic Education Funding Task Force recommendations. Sullivan, D-Covington, who is a former PTA president and member of the Task Force, said the recommendations have met with mixed response, with the Washington Education Association expressing some concerns while the PTAs and the League of Education Voters support the measure.

The WEA represents teachers throughout the state, while the League of Education Voters doesn’t represent any one group. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to “making Washington’s preschools, public schools, and colleges the best in the nation,” according to its Web site.

The Basic Education Funding task force worked for 18 months on the project before delivering its report to the governor in December.

“I’d be really disappointed if we weren’t able to move something forward this year,” Sullivan said Wednesday.

Sullivan said he hopes something can be accomplished this year, though he admits the final bill is still being negotiated.

“Clearly, it’s not an end product,” he said of the report.

Kauffman also cited the Basic Education Funding Task Force as something she hoped to work on, as well as on early learning programs and any proposed changes to the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

“I think everyone has their own opinion on that,” she said.

Sullivan said he was working on a bill that would create new “benefit zones” that would allow a city to make improvements to a section of its jurisdiction and then keep a greater portion of sales tax from businesses in the zone to help recoup costs for infrastructure improvements.

Sullivan also said he was looking into an idea used in other states, including California, that would allow local jurisdictions to allow developers inside local improvement districts to mitigate their projects in other sections of the city, not just within the district.

“It has to be within the local jurisdiction, but not necessarily within the district,” he said of the proposal.

Sullivan said both proposals were aimed at bringing in and retaining businesses, adding that he was trying to put some focus on helping local governments with economic development.

Sullivan said he was also beginning work on a bill that would seek to make up the difference for community colleges, such as Green River, between the tuition and the amount the state pays for Running Start students.

“The college is not being fully funded for that student,” he said. “There is an equity issue.”

Aside from the budget, Kauffman said she was working on a consumer protection bill that would force manufacturers to notify consumers if their car contained an event data recorder, a device that functions like an airplane’s “black box.” Kauffman said the consumer should own that data as well as be notified it is being kept.

“Currently there are no regulations in Washington State regarding the event data recorder,” she said.

Simpson said many of his non-budget priorities come from his work as chairman of the Local Government and Housing Committee, which focuses on issues affecting local municipalities from counties and cities to library districts and the like, as well as affordable housing issues.

“We’ve got some real challenges out there as far as housing affordability,” he said.

Simpson, a firefighter himself, said he was also working on a bill brought to him by the state fire chiefs association that would ban novelty lighters that look like toys. Simpson said there is strong anecdotal evidence that children will play with such lighters and accidentally start fires.

Simpson also said he is sponsoring a bill that will make it illegal for convicted sex offenders to have access to the Internet. Simpson said he was spurred on by an episode of the TV show “To Catch a Predator” in which a repeat offender fell for the sting a second time.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to use the Internet anymore,” he said. “It’s about protecting our kids.”

Finally, Simpson said he working on a bill that would allow developers to purchase the development rights in rural areas in exchange for creating higher densities within urbanized areas. Simpson said this would be a market-based approach that would further protect rural land, while concentrating growth in places where the infrastructure and services already exist.

“I think it’s the piece of the Growth Management Act that was missing when it was passed,” he said.

To contact Rep. Pat Sullivan call 360-786-7858 or e-mail sullivan.pat@leg.wa.gov.

To contact Rep. Geoff Simpson call 360-786-7918 or email simpson.geoff@leg.wa.gov.

To contact Sen. Claudia Kauffman call 360-786-7692 or e-mail kauffman.claudia@leg.wa.gov.