Inside scoop from Olympia ‘beyond ugly’

This is the second blog post written by Rep. Reuven Carlyle, who represents Ballard and the rest of the 36th District. In his first post, he asked My Ballard readers for “your very best idea for an actual piece of legislation that I should introduce to benefit our community.” Dozens of you posted your ideas in comments. Now Rep. Carlyle reports back on your ideas, provides a Viaduct update and gives a frank assessment of the budget situation.

Hi folks:

First and foremost, I am very sorry for my long silence in responding to your wonderful posts about the 2009 legislature. I readily acknowledge I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with 18-hour days and a huge legislative workplan (and the effort to come home to Seattle occasionally to see my wife and four kids). I have been working on many of the issues you raised, but I failed to communicate back to you in a timely fashion.

The inside scoop from Olympia is beyond ugly. The projected budget deficit is much worse than the $6 billion the papers have indicated. We don’t know the actual numbers but my personal, unofficial view is that it will be well north of $8 billion by the time we’re done with the session. As a member of the budget-writing Education Appropriations Committee, I’m doing everything I can to minimize the cuts to education given that it is the ‘paramount duty’ of state government and it’s the only long-term way out of this near-depression. I spend most of my time on this issue and it has been pretty stressful to say ‘sorry, we can’t afford it’ about 10 times a day to valuable programs.

Still, I do NOT believe it is in the interests of the people of our district and our state to simply slash an estimated 25% of the entire budget—closing group foster homes, reducing nursing home care, eliminating environmental oversight, slashing financial aid for students and much more. We must have a more balanced approach that actually examines the ‘return on investment’ of tax dollars in state programs. I support a broader strategy of targeted cuts, closing some of the inequitable tax loopholes, and lastly raising certain fees and taxes in a progressive and common sense manner that hopefully won’t hurt our economy more than help it.

I also admit it’s been somewhat disconcerting how much the institutional bureaucracy of state government continues to resist the need for structural change in how it delivers services. When I think of President Obama’s call for courageous honesty about what programs work and what does not in government, I find myself distressed at the lack of a similar resolve to make bold systems reforms here at home. And yet on a human level, the economy has everyone in both the public and private sectors terrified for their own job—and it shows.

The second issue that has consumed my attention is the integrated tunnel, surface and transit solution to the Viaduct. I have been working extremely hard to ensure genuine access for Ballard, Queen Anne and Magnolia. While the overall design is relatively strong, and I do support the strategy, my comfort level has slipped considerably regarding the City of Seattle’s technical details to ensure access from our neighborhoods. I meet with the state, county and city Department of Transportation folks frequently and am pushing with all of my might for a clearer, more thoughtful approach to access. We’re not there yet. The access issues need much more technical work.

Now, I’ve selected a handful of specific examples of ideas you provided where there is legislation that actually addresses the issue head one. There are many more bills touching on housing and other issues you all discussed, but I wanted to give a narrower list to show that some of the initiatives actually mirror your exact ideas.

To the list of comments!

shelterwood
Please talk with your Senator Kohl-Wells about supporting restoration of voting rights for felons who have served their time (I think the Senator submitted legislation last year but now that it is not an election year it might be a good time to work with her and the ACLU to get it through).

HB 1517 – DIGEST
Restores the right to vote for a person convicted of felony if certain conditions are met. I’m hoping the House or Senate bill might actually have a shot this year.

Tree Ethington
Let low level offenders, non violent offenders out of jail and put them to work. How can you care about life and yourself if you can’t even support yourself.. Education vs. cost of supporting an ever growing burdensome expanding incarceration industry. Do you know what it costs to keep a minor criminal in jail and the support services, police, health, food, etc.? It’s insane what’s being spent in that area. If a person has no hope for a better future and no way to get one, why would they care about their behavior or consequence of their actions?

Bill to watch: HB 1791
Clarifies sentencing provisions regarding certain community custody and drug offender sentencing alternatives. There are a number of other bills attempting to do the same thing and I’m supporting nearly every one of them!

JK
Support the effort to reduce tuition or student loans for docs and nurses, et al, going into primary care medicine. This is necessary to ensure enough care as the population ages, and if we ever get universal health care in this country we’ll need even more of em.

SB 5502
Finds that there is a critical shortage of primary care physicians in the state especially in rural areas. Declares an intent to create incentives for medical school students to choose primary care practice for their medical careers. Establishes the primary care physician conditional tuition waiver program to be administered by the University of Washington. Creates the primary care physician conditional tuition waiver account. Provides that, within funds appropriated to the department of health for this purpose, and with the goal of increasing the number of family medicine residency positions at community health centers, and thereby increasing the number of family medicine physicians working in underserved settings, a family medicine residency training grant program is created. Creates the family medicine residency training account. Requires funding for graduate medical education to be directed toward residents in training in family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics who plan to pursue primary care following their residency programs.

John Marshall
Our local, independent, family owned, retail bookstore is constantly hampered by the requirements of the Destination-based Sales Tax in the State of Washington. We are required to charge the local sales tax at the destination for purchases. A large portion of our business involves customers who reside outside of Seattle. For each customer within commuting distance we must keep two accounts, one for when they shop in person and we charge Seattle’s sales tax, and another for purchases that we mail to them charging their specific sales tax at their specific address. We know of other bookstores in Seattle that refuse to sell and mail to customers within Washington State due specifically to the requirements of the Destination-based Sales Tax. Our sales tax reports to the state can easily include fifty or sixty lines of sales tax locations and the specific amount of tax that we have collected that will be distributed to those taxing districts. Often the sales tax collected in many of the more than 350 sales tax districts in the state amount to less than three dollars. The time and energy we spend trying to meet this tax requirement is very expensive for us. By limiting this tax requirement to larger purchases or perhaps to the larger corporations who can afford to develop a fully automated system of tax determination, charging, and reporting would help the smaller businesses in the state.

John, on your behalf, I met with the head of the Department of Revenue, Cindy Holmstrom, who has an aggressive new program underway to address this issue. She provided the following links but also said there is now a counseling service available free of charge to small businesses. Get in touch with me and I’ll connect you directly to the director’s office for the ultimate in personalized support! I think they can actually help you. Links:

Washington Retails Association

Destination-based sales tax

trizzle
Decriminalize marijuana and maybe all drugs. I am sick that we spend time and money and jail space on drug users, while violent offenders go free. Not to mention the tax revenue we are missing out on.

HB 1177
During this economic crisis we are trying to do everything we can to maintain programs that protect the health and welfare of our state’s most vulnerable citizens. With this in mind, I think it is ridiculous to spend over $7.6 million in taxpayer’s dollars to process petty marijuana users through our system. I agree that we could better use these funds to offset the true costs of treatment and public education. For these reasons, I was proud to sponsor HB 1177 and I will work to ensure its passage. It won’t happen this year due to the focus on the budget, but I am hopeful the success of the City of Seattle’s program in this area can help convince state lawmakers this is the way to go.

Please let me know if there are other specific bills that have captured your attention or interest. Post a comment here or contact me directly if you need additional follow up.

Are there other major issues you’d like me to post about?

Thanks for your gracious understanding and your flexibility during my first 5 weeks on the job!

Your partner in service,
Reuven.