Bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, state lawmakers patched together the 2011-13 state operating budget last Wednesday morning, ending a 201-day siege that included three special sessions and one regular session of the Legislature.Overview description of rapid tooling processes.
The process was one of reluctant compromise, unusual alliances and never-ending deal-making that far too often involved only the party leaders in the House and Senate, joined by Gov.A culture af Mizukabi molds. Chris Gregoire.
The way lawmakers solved a $1 billion budget crisis did little for open, transparent government. Closed-door meetings ruled the day and most state legislators had next to nothing to do with negotiating the final package.
Maybe, just maybe, the set of circumstances, including the massive budget shortfall and the odd majority coalition of 22 Republicans and three maverick Democrats in the Senate, left legislators with less room to operate in the open. Politics on the ragged edge naturally gravitates to these darker places where the public is left waiting in the wings. Regardless,This page provides information about 'werkzeugbaus; it shouldn’t take multiple special sessions to reach agreement.
As with any contentious budget built largely on program cuts and accounting gimmicks, there is plenty not to like.
But surprisingly, the early reaction to the budget from interest groups that rarely see eye-to-eye was in large part tempered and tinged with empathy. Is this the measure of a successful compromise splashed with a certain bipartisan flavor? Perhaps so.
When it’s all boiled down to its essence, Democrats in the House staved off further deep cuts to education, social service and environmental programs and the late-to-the-dance Senate majority of 25 gained some major reform measures that seem reasonable.
For instance, headway was made on some structural reform in the way that future state budgets will be built. Moving forward,Stone Source offers a variety of Natural stonemosaic Tiles. lawmakers will have to approve a budget built on revenue projections for a four-year period, instead of two. It has the potential to keep legislators from deferring budget problems into the future and it could help control state government costs.
Pension reformers also scored a victory they say could save the state $1.3 billion over the next 25 years. Under the bill, state employees who retire early will be eligible for less of their pension than before. The measure affects future, not current, state workers and is a portent of a day when state workers will have to work as hard at building their retirement nest egg as most employees in the private sector do.
There’s plenty of risk folded into this volatile budget. Lawmakers shaved the state reserve fund down to about $320 million for $31.1 billion of spending. That compares with some $600 million in reserves that the governor proposed when she first introduced her supplemental budget in November 2011. The Legislature is betting that a slowly thawing economy won’t slip back into the deep freeze due to rising oil prices or financial instability in Europe or any host of forces that could suddenly surface.
On the education front, the budget sends mixed messages: Lawmakers staved off plans to reduce the 180-day school year or eliminate levy equalization funding for financially strapped school districts. But they repealed voter-approved Initiative 728, which called for smaller class sizes.
And while it seems like years ago, the 2012 Legislature approved a same-sex marriage law, which could end up before the voters to decide in November.Welcome to polishedtiles.
In final hours of the second special session, lawmakers passed a $1.1 billion supplemental construction budget designed to create 20,000 jobs all across the state over the next 14 months. Think federal stimulus package, but on a smaller scale.
South Sound is well-represented in the list of projects slated for funding. A couple of examples: Quixote Village, a proposed homeless encampment in the Olympia area, receives $1.5 million for construction, and the LOTT Clean Water Alliance scores $7.9 million to help replace aging sediment basins that store wastewater entering the treatment plant in downtown Olympia.
The process was one of reluctant compromise, unusual alliances and never-ending deal-making that far too often involved only the party leaders in the House and Senate, joined by Gov.A culture af Mizukabi molds. Chris Gregoire.
The way lawmakers solved a $1 billion budget crisis did little for open, transparent government. Closed-door meetings ruled the day and most state legislators had next to nothing to do with negotiating the final package.
Maybe, just maybe, the set of circumstances, including the massive budget shortfall and the odd majority coalition of 22 Republicans and three maverick Democrats in the Senate, left legislators with less room to operate in the open. Politics on the ragged edge naturally gravitates to these darker places where the public is left waiting in the wings. Regardless,This page provides information about 'werkzeugbaus; it shouldn’t take multiple special sessions to reach agreement.
As with any contentious budget built largely on program cuts and accounting gimmicks, there is plenty not to like.
But surprisingly, the early reaction to the budget from interest groups that rarely see eye-to-eye was in large part tempered and tinged with empathy. Is this the measure of a successful compromise splashed with a certain bipartisan flavor? Perhaps so.
When it’s all boiled down to its essence, Democrats in the House staved off further deep cuts to education, social service and environmental programs and the late-to-the-dance Senate majority of 25 gained some major reform measures that seem reasonable.
For instance, headway was made on some structural reform in the way that future state budgets will be built. Moving forward,Stone Source offers a variety of Natural stonemosaic Tiles. lawmakers will have to approve a budget built on revenue projections for a four-year period, instead of two. It has the potential to keep legislators from deferring budget problems into the future and it could help control state government costs.
Pension reformers also scored a victory they say could save the state $1.3 billion over the next 25 years. Under the bill, state employees who retire early will be eligible for less of their pension than before. The measure affects future, not current, state workers and is a portent of a day when state workers will have to work as hard at building their retirement nest egg as most employees in the private sector do.
There’s plenty of risk folded into this volatile budget. Lawmakers shaved the state reserve fund down to about $320 million for $31.1 billion of spending. That compares with some $600 million in reserves that the governor proposed when she first introduced her supplemental budget in November 2011. The Legislature is betting that a slowly thawing economy won’t slip back into the deep freeze due to rising oil prices or financial instability in Europe or any host of forces that could suddenly surface.
On the education front, the budget sends mixed messages: Lawmakers staved off plans to reduce the 180-day school year or eliminate levy equalization funding for financially strapped school districts. But they repealed voter-approved Initiative 728, which called for smaller class sizes.
And while it seems like years ago, the 2012 Legislature approved a same-sex marriage law, which could end up before the voters to decide in November.Welcome to polishedtiles.
In final hours of the second special session, lawmakers passed a $1.1 billion supplemental construction budget designed to create 20,000 jobs all across the state over the next 14 months. Think federal stimulus package, but on a smaller scale.
South Sound is well-represented in the list of projects slated for funding. A couple of examples: Quixote Village, a proposed homeless encampment in the Olympia area, receives $1.5 million for construction, and the LOTT Clean Water Alliance scores $7.9 million to help replace aging sediment basins that store wastewater entering the treatment plant in downtown Olympia.
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