OLYMPIA— State Rep. Sharon Wylie (D-Vancouver) was appointed to the Joint Higher Education Committee by Speaker of the House Frank Chopp (D-Seattle) on May 9, 2012.

Wylie has represented the 49th Legislative District since April 2011 and currently serves in the House Higher Education Committee.

“It is an honor to be selected to take on additional responsibilities as the state faces the challenges of ensuring and paying for our higher education system,” said Wylie, who also holds seats in the Capital Budget, Environment, and Technology Energy & Communications Committees.

The Joint Higher Education Committee was created in E2SHB 2483, a measure establishing a new Student Achievement Council effective July 1, 2012 to replace the Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The nine-member Student Achievement Council will provide focus and purpose to increase educational attainment in Washington, including transitions from secondary to postsecondary and between and among postsecondary institutions.

The Joint Higher Education Committee will review the work of the Student Achievement Council and will provide legislative feedback, engage with the council and the higher education community on creating greater communication, coordination, and alignment between the system and expectations of the Legislature, and will provide recommendations for higher education policy.

May 10th, 2012

Legislative Session Report

Your 3rd Legislative District team joined together to create a 2012 Legislative Session Report that was sent to residents in the district this week. You can read the newsletter in PDF form here. In the newsletter, Sen. Brown, Rep. Ormsby and I report on session highlights for Spokane in the areas of job creation, transportation, equal rights, the social safety net, and education.

Spokesman-Review Guest Column

In case you missed it, I recently authored an op-ed in the Spokesman-Review  titled “Bipartisanship in Olympia.” There’s an incorrect perception that Olympia is awash in partisanship. There are certainly bills that fall out along party lines – and those are the bills that draw media attention – but most of the legislation and the work we do is bipartisan. Please take a moment to read the op-ed and feel free to e-mail me if you have any comments.

Mobile Office – We’re bringing our legislative offices to your neighborhood!

Last fall, we created mobile offices around the district that were open to the public and allowed citizens to interact with their Legislators on a one-on-basis without leaving their neighborhood.  We had a great response and valued the excellent questions and comments we received from constituents.

This spring, I’m excited to announce Rep. Ormsby and I will be hosting mobile offices once again.

We encourage constituents to take full advantage of the mobile office and bring their questions about state government, ideas for legislation, or other feedback or inquiries. The mobile office affords residents who can’t visit our Spokane or Olympia offices an additional opportunity to meet and speak directly with us. We have several planned with a third event to be announced soon:

Thursday, June 14th
West Central neighborhood – Indaba Coffee
1425 W Broadway Ave

4:30 to 6:00pm

Thursday, June 21st

East Central Neighborhood- South Perry Farmer’s Market

924 S Perry Street
4:00 to 6:00pm

Keeping In Touch – Last official newsletter until November

Due to election year restrictions, this is the last official legislative newsletter I can send until after the general election in November. However, you can keep updated with legislative activities during the interim on my website and you are always welcome to call or e-mail me or my Legislative Assistant, Paul Dillon, with any questions or comments you may have.   We look forward to discussing and sharing ideas with you.

“My focus as a legislator is on delivering results for my community, and the local business community here in South King County is very much a part of that,” Upthegrove said. “For decades, the Kent Chamber has supported the same things that are important to me –good-paying, local jobs and a strong economy.  It’s an honor to receive this recognition from them.”

Upthegrove both sponsored legislation and led efforts this year that directly assist South King County’s economy, but also have statewide implications:

• A measure fixing a glitch in state law that slammed certain businesses with exorbitant unemployment insurance rates.  The issue was brought to Upthegrove’s attention by the plight of a Kent restaurant, Mama Stortini’s, that was being charged a 500 percent rate increase after taking over the lease of a failed restaurant in the same location. While the law was originally intended to prevent fraud, it was never meant to burden businesses that open where others have failed. Thanks to Upthegrove’s legislative fix, the restaurant did not have to close its doors or lay off workers.
• A measure creating a faster permitting process for boatyards installing pollution filters to protect Puget Sound. The filter systems are required by law, but are costly and the permitting process is lengthy and burdensome. Most boatyards are small businesses that have struggled with the costs of this process, and Upthegrove’s bill saves time and money for them.
• An amendment to the state operating budget ensuring that additional engineering and technology slots are guaranteed at the state’s regional universities, including Central Washington University’s Des Moines branch (CWU) at Highline Community College. This means opportunities for more students from both Green River and Highline Community Colleges to enroll in four-year engineering degree programs through CWU on the Highline Campus.
• A $5 million allocation for the SR 509/I-5 commerce corridor in the state transportation budget. The project is critical to economic development in SeaTac, freight mobility out of the Kent Valley, south access to the airport, and moving truck traffic to the Duwamish off I-5.

The winner of the award will be announced at the Chamber’s April 28 gala dinner, which Upthegrove plans to attend.

Shortly before 6 o’clock that evening, thousands of 49^th Legislative District citizens will receive recorded phone calls inviting them to stay on the line to participate in the tele-Town Hall. Participants who want to ask a question will need simply to press “*3” (i.e., press the “star” button, and then press the “3” button).

Anyone who doesn’t get that pre-6 p.m. call is encouraged to call the toll-free number directly, 877-229-8493, and enter PIN code No. 18646 when prompted.

Moeller’s tele-forum is an opportunity for citizens to bring up questions, comments and concerns about topics related to the Washington State Legislature, specifically, or state government, in general.

Also, Moeller emphasized that all citizens should feel very free to contact him whenever they want to get something off their chest.

Moeller and the 146 other lawmakers recently completed their work in the 2012 legislative session.

Stanford worked this past legislative session to win support for an $800,000 appropriation in the supplemental 2011-2013 capital budget to assist in paying for a new Scriber Creek Pedestrian Bridge. This updated construction budget won final legislative approval near the very end of the recent special session.

The awful flood in December 2007 damaged the bridge, he said.
“Those devastating flood waters eroded the creek bank,” Stanford explained. “In fact, the creek bank took such a battering that two of the four pilings supporting the bridge were exposed.”

“I’d like to express my appreciation to Rep. Stanford and his staff for their efforts assisting the City of Brier to acquire the funding needed for this project,” said

Brier Mayor Bob Colinas. “The city will now be able to make the repairs ensuring that the bridge, sewer line and the fragile ecosystem of Scriber Creek will be maintained.”

Nicole Gaudette, Brier City Planner, said that “rebuilding the Scriber Creek Bridge will protect salmon-bearing waters, critical infrastructure, a pedestrian pathway, and the public health. The state’s partnership in funding this project is crucial to its success.”

The Scriber Creek Pedestrian Bridge not only provides a major trail link in Brier, it also carries a sewer pipe over Scriber Creek, which is a salmon-bearing waterway.

As an emergency measure after the flood, a rock wall was installed to protect the exposed pilings and prevent the bridge from falling.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials have declared that the rock wall can serve only as an emergency provision, which means that it must be removed fairly soon to prevent further damage to fish habitat. So when the rock wall is taken out, the bridge and sewer pipe are once again vulnerable if there’s another flood. And if that happens, the sewage dumped in Scriber Creek would pollute the water, the waters downstream and, eventually, Lake Washington.

Stanford said top principles in the capital budget, which this year is also called the “Jobs Now! Act,” emphasize public-school improvements, among other construction work. The budget will help leverage federal, local and private funding, and it also helps preserve and maintain state facilities.

He also noted that the capital budget “is primarily funded by the sale of bonds, and doesn’t do anything to add to the serious shortfall currently confronting our state’s biennial operating budget.”

April 20, 2012

The 2012 legislative session is over.  It showed how difficult it is to deal with four years of continual decline in state revenues.  We are fortunate that the state’s economy finally is showing signs of improvement.  While the supplemental budget does not make additional cuts to K-12 or higher education, there are still many cuts in other areas; these are in addition to the $480 million we cut in the late 2011 special session. And we face a huge problem in dealing with the Supreme Court’s McCleary decision that says the state is not meeting its constitutional responsibility to adequately fund K-12 education.

“Reform”
One word that was bandied about a lot this session by Republican Senators and the three Democrats who joined them in a takeover of the Senate is “reform.”  It sounds good, but they misused it; they were not pushing reform.  They were pushing reduction, retribution, and repeal.  And the focus of these so-called reform efforts was our public employees.  It was not enough that state employees and teachers have gone over four years without a cost-of-living increase, paid more for health insurance and health care, taken furlough days without pay, and taken increased deductions for their retirement.  They have seen elimination of COLAs for Plan I retirees, an end to gain-sharing, and now a return to increased penalties for new employees who choose or need to retire before age 65.  The latter being one of the banner “reform” items of 2012.  Many state employees earn substantially less than their private sector counterparts, and with the erosion of the benefits, it will be increasingly difficult to recruit and maintain new employees to provide vital state services.

Washington has a strong and effective pilot program to improve the evaluation of teachers and principals.  It is being conducted in nine school districts across the state, including North Thurston. Unfortunately, the “reformers” used the evaluation process as the basis for their argument that the state’s public schools are filled with ineffective teachers, a premise with which I strongly disagree.  Their solution: speed up the evaluation process so we can fire more teachers.  I voted against the accelerated evaluation bill because I feared it would derail a successful pilot and because many of its supporters were using teachers as a scapegoat.  There is a big difference between using evaluations to help principals and teachers improve and using them as a simplistic attack on our schools.  While the evaluation pilot holds great promise, its purpose—as stated by many of the “reformers”—is to establish a mechanism for firing teachers, not help them improve.   So I support a stronger evaluation process for teachers and principals, but I reject the “reform” argument that we need a new law to fire more teachers and principals.  And, just where will the “reformers” find large numbers of new teachers to work for $34,401 (or $44,989 with a PhD)?

The old pirate line, “Beatings will continue until morale improves,” comes to mind when I think of these types of reforms.

Budget and Jobs Now Act approved
A balanced and sustainable operating budget and the capital budget/Jobs Now Act passed the full legislature in the early morning of April 11^th, and now sit on the Governor’s desk awaiting her signature. These budgets will protect the vulnerable in our community, foster prosperity and invest in our future.

As I mentioned, the final operating budget contains no cuts to K-12 education or higher education.  It also protects important safety net services like the Basic Health Plan, Disability Lifeline, and family planning grants.

The Jobs Now Act will generate over 18,000 jobs statewide and fund construction investments that are essential for the long-term prosperity of our communities.

These budgets are consistent with the feedback my office heard from constituents as we received thousands of e-mails and phone calls this session in support of maintaining funding for K-12 education, higher education, and important safety net programs; and in support of infrastructure investments.  Thank you to everyone that provided input throughout the legislative process.

How did we meet the 2012 budget shortfall?
Remember, we faced a nearly $2 billion budget hole when we began working on the supplemental budget last November.  How did we solve it?

We started with a “down payment” in December 2011 that addressed $480 million of the problem.

Then, in early February, we got a couple shots of better economic news.

• In the current biennium, revenues are expected to grow by about $87 million.
• Due in very large part to tighter eligibility requirements, the demand for state services dropped by around $340 million.

That left us with a shortfall of around $1.2 billion to fill in the final negotiated budget. We did that with a combination of things:

• $340.3 million in maintenance level changes
• $295.4 million in policy changes
• $238 million from the Local Sales Tax Working Capital Reserve
• $177.3 million in additional revenues
• $120 million in reversions
• $28.4 million in fund transfers

There are still those who want to insist that the state operating budget hasn’t actually been cut at all over these past four years – that the “cuts” have really only been a decrease in the increase that would have otherwise been made.  To some degree, that might be considered true.  Take, for example, the funding of Initiatives 728 and 732.  Those are voter-approved obligations to increase spending for education, and for several years we have not funded them.  Those are counted as “cuts” since they are expenditures we ordinarily would have made.

But that doesn’t account for anywhere near the whole budget situation.  State spending is actually lower than it was a few years ago, both in real dollars and in per-capita spending.  In fact, today the per-person spending in Washington, adjusted for inflation, is back down to 1985 levels.

Improving our economy in a historic way
One of the greatest achievements of the just-finished legislative session is passage of the Jobs Now Act of 2012.

Our state’s economy is showing some real signs of coming out of the recession, but one of the hardest-hit industries – construction – is still suffering.  It’s estimated that 30% of those in the construction trades are unemployed right now in Western Washington, and those numbers are nearly double on the eastern side of the state.

But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.  Suppliers, retailers, concrete companies and other industries connected to the construction business have also been hard-hit. Clearly, if our economy is to fully rebound, something needed to be done to stimulate the construction industry.

So we took inspiration from actions Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt took to help get America out of the Great Depression, and Republican governor Dan Evans took in the 1970s to grow Washington state’s economy during that decade’s tough recession. Both of them decided that the best way to get people back to work was the direct path: hire people to build things that will benefit taxpayers for generations to come.

That’s the idea behind the Jobs Now Act – we are taking advantage of some of the lowest interest rates in decades to put our own people to work building, repairing, and modernizing infrastructure projects in all corners of the state.   Up to 18,000 jobs will be created right away – many as early as this summer – and 9,000 long-term jobs will be generated from the economic development projects.

How often does a plan in Olympia have the support of both business groups and labor unions?  Jobs Now did.  And though the bill got a little bit tangled up in the operating budget negotiations, it ultimately passed with strong bi-partisan support in both the House and the Senate.

The 22^nd District will benefit directly with a number of projects, including $778,000 to help build a new home for SafePlace, $1.4 million to clean and repair the leaking Capitol dome, $1.5 million to assist Panza with construction of a permanent location for Camp Quixote, $469,000 for a Tumwater wastewater facility, $342,000 for a Lacey stormwater facility, $312,000 for South Puget Sound Community College water quality, and $7.9 million for LOTT sedimentation basins.

Washington gets 100% for accessibility to government
Washington state has earned a perfect score for website transparency for the second year in a row. This means Access Washington is one of the most open and accessible state government sites in the entire nation.

The A+ grade was awarded by the Sunshine Review, a national nonprofit organization focused on government accountability. Washington is one of just 10 states to receive such a high mark. To learn more about the reasons our state website got a perfect score, go here.

Since its initial launch in 1998, Access Washington has won multiple awards for service, innovation, communication, quality and excellence.

Users can find answers to endless questions about their government, such as how to report suspected fraud, how to renew your drivers or business license, and where to get employment assistance. You can also find names and contact information of elected officials and lobbyists, easy access to contracts and tax information, and information on ethics policies as well as the Washington Public Records Act.

Check it out!

 The amendment by Rep. Mark Miloscia (D-Federal Way) requires every state agency to apply for a Washington State Quality Award this year instead of waiting until 2014. Applying for the quality award automatically triggers an independent assessment or quality audit of each agency’s quality management, accountability, and performance—including whether the agency has strong leadership, performance measures and “a culture of customer service.”

“We passed several strong reforms of individual agencies and expenditures in the closing weeks of the session,” said Miloscia. “But this reform is different because it applies to every agency and will improve accountability and performance across every part of state government.”

Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives voted by acclamation for the Miloscia amendment, which was the last amendment added to the budget—or any measure—during the 2012 regular and special sessions of the Legislature.

The Washington State Quality Award was originally launched in 1992 with the help of Weyerhaeuser, Boeing and other leaders representing business and labor. It is dedicated to providing education and training to public and private organizations on the Malcolm Baldrige model of customer satisfaction and performance excellence.

All award applicants are assessed by independent experts who report on each organization’s strengths and on where improvements are needed to achieve performance excellence.  By statute, Gov. Chris Gregoire presents Washington State Quality Awards to the top-rated public and private organizations.

Miloscia has served as a Washington State Quality Award Examiner and a National Malcolm Baldrige Award Examiner. He authored the first Washington state law to require strict, comprehensive performance audits of state government.

“Requiring every agency to apply for quality awards in 2012 will put an immediate spotlight on customer service and achieving best practices in government,” said Miloscia. “Some agencies may balk at the extra effort we’re requiring at a time when budgets are being cut, but this is the kind of reform we need to improve government across-the-board and restore public trust again.”

April 11th, 2012

I am pleased to report that we passed a bi-partisan, balanced operating budget and capital budget/jobs package at 7:15 this morning after working through the night. These budgets will protect the vulnerable in our community, foster prosperity and invest in our future.

The final operating budget has no cuts to education and also protects important safety net programs like the Basic Health Plan, Sally’s House and the Housing and Essential Needs program.

The capital budget (often referred to as the Jobs Package) also delivers for our community and our state. The capital budget will generate over 20,000 jobs statewide and fund construction investments that are essential for the long-term prosperity of our community, including the Spokane Medical School and the Spokane Skills Center.

These budgets reflect the values of our community and are consistent with the feedback our office heard from constituents as we received thousands of e-mails and phone calls this session in support of maintaining funding for K-12 education, higher education, early learning and important safety net programs.  Thank you to everyone that provided input throughout the legislative process.

Pollet measure would ensure videos aren’t destroyed before they are made available to the public

OLYMPIA: State Representative Gerry Pollet (D-North Seattle) is expressing concern over a King County judge’s ruling that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) can legally destroy dash-camera recordings before they are released through public records requests. In a bizarre catch-22 acknowledged by King County Judge Jim Rogers, the SPD is legally allowed to destroy the dash-cam video recordings as soon as they are subject to release under the Public Records Act.

“When charges are filed or dropped, these videos, which are public records, need to be available for public review without destruction,” said Rep. Pollet. “Without disclosure, possible violations of civil rights cannot be reviewed by the media and the public. If the SPD isn’t interested in changing its policy, I will introduce legislation to prohibit the destruction of dash-cam videos.”

Rep. Pollet’s announcement came in response to the decision issued yesterday in a suit brought by KOMO TV’s Tracy Vedder, whose request for police dash-cam videos was denied by the SPD. The SPD has a history of denying disclosure of videos for the allotted three years, as well as destroying video records after the three years has passed under the city’s record retention schedule.

A long-time advocate for open government and board member for the Washington Coalition for Open Government, Rep. Pollet was the prime-sponsor of legislation to require training of all public officials in their duties to disclose public records and meet in open meetings this year. The Attorney General’s office has said that this change will reduce taxpayer costs in the form of legal fees and penalties paid by state and local agencies.

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For more information:
Rep. Pollet, 206.729.3234
gerry.pollet@leg.wa.gov

Media staff contact:
Billie Toyra, 360.786.7224
billie.toyra@leg.wa.gov

We have already advanced a supplemental operating budget that:

1) Supports a strong education for students in our K-12 public schools, colleges, and universities.

2) Defends the social safety net for the health, well-being, and peace-of-mind of our citizens.

Further, our supplemental operating budget maintains a good portion of the Basic Health program for working families, and we preserve the Disability Lifeline for unemployed workers and people struggling with mental illnesses. And we fund essential public-health programs and needed community services that assist developmentally disabled folks and other communities in need.

And soon this morning, I think and hope we will also advance a supplemental capital budget that:

3) Triggers a robust package for jobs and economic development. We’re talking about $1 billion in bonds to put men and women to work in good-paying jobs throughout our Washington communities and neighborhoods.