I came to Olympia in January knowing this would easily be the most challenging legislative session I’ve faced to date. With a $5 billion budget hole to fix, and a pledge to write and pass a budget that both Democrats and Republicans could support, we were left with only one option: making reductions to the public services I took office 18 years ago to grow and protect – including public education, public safety and health care.
I am leaving Olympia – after a 105-day regular session and one 30-day special session – feeling emotionally and physically exhausted, but also somewhat relieved.
It took a little more time, but we stuck to our commitment to craft a bipartisan budget. And despite the difficult decisions we were forced to make in that process, we put together final operating and capital budgets that are fiscally responsible for the future and contain compassionate solutions for the present.
What’s more, even in this grueling budget climate, we managed to make investments that are critical to Spokane’s economy and community.
MAC to stay open
Thanks in large part to the concern and dedication of the people in our 3rd Legislative District, the doors of Spokane’s Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture will remain open. While the governor originally proposed closing the MAC permanently, the Legislature’s final operating budget includes $2.965 million to keep this important facility operational.
Other local highlights in the operating budget include:
- $7.1 million for a technology consortium that includes SIRTI;
- Funding for street youth, which funds Crosswalk locally; and
- $500,000 for WSU’s Applied Sciences Laboratory at Riverpoint.
Medical school construction can begin
While it started with no funding in the governor’s proposal, the Legislature’s final capital budget includes $35 million for construction of the yet-to-be-built medical school on Washington State University’s Spokane Riverpoint campus. (The operating budget contains an additional $1.8 million for its expansion in Spokane and Eastern Washington, and for curriculum development.)
Ensuring funding for the medical school was my number-one capital budget priority this session. I have supported, and will continue to strongly support, the shared vision for expanding medical education and research in Spokane on the Riverpoint campus. The nation is short some 150,000 physicians, and Eastern and Central Washington have among the lowest rates of physicians per 10,000 population in the country. The medical school in Spokane will improve health care access and quality of care, and make a sustainable economic impact.
The mere construction of the facility will create hundreds of direct jobs, and the $70 million dollar facility will have a $122.3 million dollar economic impact output for two years. The sustainable economic impact upon completion will be $2 billion per year and 13,000 new jobs at full build-out by 2030, according to a recent study.
Other local highlights in the capital budget include:
- $17.647 million for Patterson Hall at Eastern Washington University;
- $862,000 for the Arc of Spokane;
- $56,000 for the Salvation Army’s Center for Nurturing Families & Children;
- $17.647 million for classrooms at Spokane Falls Community College;
- $1,250,000 for 2nd Harvest Food Bank’s project to renovate and expand their facility to process bulk perishable food donations; and
- $1,633,198 for the acquisition of additional land for the beautiful Antoine Peak conservation area (via the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program).
Summaries of the final operating and capital budgets, which now await the governor’s signature, can be found here and here.
Believe me, these budget victories for Spokane don’t lessen the pain of the big reductions we were pressed to make to some of the very services in which I believe most. But they will allow our community to grow and, in time, prosper again – and that is something I think is worth acknowledging, if not celebrating.