Gregoire budget details
THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Besides the pay freezes and tuition increases, here are other details from Gov. Chris Gregoire’s budget proposal:
• Lays off 2,600 state or college employees, for a total job reduction of 4,000 through layoffs and a hiring freeze.
• Closes 13 state parks, including Joemma Beach and Kopachuk in Pierce County and Tolmie in Thurston County.
• Closes seven state fish hatcheries.
• Eliminates math help, reading corps, bilingual education, after-school and some class-size reduction programs to save more than $400 million in public schools.
• Eliminates cash payments of $339 a month and medical coverage for 21,000 low-income people on General Assistance Unemployable, but continues programs for aged, blind and disabled.
• Spends $630 million of $730 million that would have been in the “Rainy Day” savings account in mid-2011.
• Leaves an overall reserve of $508 million.
• Spends $3 billion by putting 1,224 transportation projects under construction next year.
• Further reduces state-subsidized Basic Health Plan enrollment to well below 80,000 children of low-income families.
• Ends state supervision for most ex-convicts, except the 13,000 most violent or sex offenders, and cuts maximum supervision for those ex-cons from 24 months to 12 months.
• Releases prison inmates older than 55 years old if they are chronically ill and are not violent offenders or sex offenders.
• Ends drug addiction treatment for 16,000 low-income offenders.
• Stops providing safe refuges for teenage runaways.
• Gives counties 2.5 percent to 7.5 percent less money for mental health programs.
• Cuts state payments to hospitals for caring for indigent by 4 percent.
• Starts kicking families off welfare faster by speeding up the penalty process.
• Halts a state health care subsidy for children whose parents earn more than $62,000 (family of four), and makes lower-income families pay part of their insurance premiums.
• Eliminates universal vaccine program for kids, except those on Medicaid, saving $50 million.
• Skips state payments to employee retirement plans, saving $400 million.
Joseph Turner, The News Tribune
