Edior’s note: When Gov. Chris Gregoire announced her slash-and-burn no-tax budget adjustment Wednesday, politicians and interest groups were poised for the attack. The same day, Gregoire herself repudiated the budget and endorsed revenue increases to soften the impact. Here are some excerpts from critics’ statements: Mark Emmert, University of Washington president:
Like all who rely on state funding to serve the needs of our citizens, we are deeply concerned about the impacts of the governor’s supplemental budget proposal on our state and, most importantly, our students. Just when you think things can’t get worse, they do.
Losing half of our state’s nationally recognized need-grant program will shut out thousands of our state’s finest students from a chance at a college degree and a better future. Without the state need-grant program, Husky Promise scholarships would be severely curtailed, and the 7,000 students who are able to attend the UW because of these scholarships would be unable to continue. Higher education would become a luxury only the well-to-do could afford.
The further erosion of state support for the UW will make it even harder for us to meet the educational needs of our students. No one – the governor, the Legislature or the university – can control the economy. But we also cannot afford to decimate critical programs and opportunities for our state’s students.
Even during a long, hard winter you can’t eat your seed corn. It is time for the Legislature and the governor to look for additional revenue sources to help moderate these unacceptable impacts on our state’s citizens.
State Sen. Joe Zarelli, ranking Republican, Senate Ways and Means Committee:
There are reform opportunities across state government.
At the K-12 level we can improve the way bilingual education and learning assistance programs are delivered, and consider options that could prevent the elimination of levy equalization.
In health care we could institute Medicaid co-pays, premiums, and more frequent eligibility verification, rather than eliminate services.
In higher education the reforms could include limiting tuition waivers, eliminating subsidies for career students, and examining a high-tuition, high-financial aid model, rather than significantly reducing financial aid.
At the agency level we could finally make better use of the contracting-out provision, privatize liquor sales and reform the way we procure information technology.
We could adopt changes to General Assistance-Unemployable and Basic Health Plan which make those programs do what they were originally intended to do. And we ought to revisit (Gregoire’s) plan to increase funding for health care coverage and salary increases under the state’s collective bargaining agreement.
I hope the governor takes a good long look at those ideas before she goes for hundreds of millions worth of tax increases.
Chris Korsmo, executive director, League of Education Voters:
Even in these bleak economic times, we challenge the governor and lawmakers to invest in what works. We can’t abandon the most vulnerable children and families. So what works? We believe these programs have demonstrated the proven track record that deserve continued investment.
• Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP): Thousands of young children attend an early childhood education program that helps them start kindergarten ready to succeed.
• Home visitation: At-risk families receive home visiting services from a registered nurse.
• All-day kindergarten: The most at-risk kids in our state attend an all-day kindergarten program.
• State Need Grant for higher education: Financial aid ensures that low and middle income students aren’t shut out of an opportunity to attend a college or university.
• K-4 class size reduction: Young kids benefit the most academically from small class sizes in kindergarten through 4th grade.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn:
The proposed budget is historic. It cuts away at the heart of what we consider basic education. As many as 5,000 teachers could be laid off. Added to the 1,300 teachers we lost this year, the cuts will even further increase class size. We have world-class standards, but fewer teachers and larger class sizes will make teaching those standards extremely difficult.
How can we expect our teachers, already stretched thin in their jobs, to teach standards to a class of 30 or 35 students?
The cuts will have terrible consequences beyond class size. To balance their budgets, many districts have already reduced their investments in facilities maintenance, which could compromise the health and safety of teachers and students. Many districts will also have to cut their reserves to impossibly low levels. A small emergency could bankrupt many of them.
The triple-whammy of lost federal resources, increased pension contributions and reduced state funding will mean that the education system we have enjoyed for three decades will be devastated.
State Sen. Karen Keiser, chairwoman, Senate Health Care Committee:
Faced with a $2.6 billion shortfall, it’s understandable why these drastic cuts have been proposed, but they are disastrous and cannot stand.
Reducing eligibility for the Apple Health for Children program to less than 205 percent of the federal poverty level will leave 16,000 children without medical care. This undermines all the hard work we’ve done to ensure eligible children have access to quality care. This cut is not acceptable.
The Basic Health Plan is a lifeline for about 65,000 thousand Washington residents. Eliminating the program will throw families into financial and medical chaos. This will be disastrous, and we can’t allow it.
We can’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Making those cuts will cost us more in the future in human and financial terms, further destabilizing families and erasing years of progress we’ve made improving health care in Washington.
Ending adult hearing, vision and dental benefits and no longer providing medical interpreters would have devastating consequences.
This budget calls for the suspension of maternity support, hospice, vision and podiatry for diabetes patients and other essential medical services that help form the basis of our state’s medical safety net.
There is no sugar coating this situation. We must find a way to restore these unjust cuts.
Washington State Hospital Association:
If the health care cuts as proposed were enacted, all Washington residents would feel the impact:
• At least 85,000 vulnerable children and adults would become uninsured – virtually overnight. This means emergency rooms would become significantly more crowded, with longer wait times for everyone.
• Hospitals would be forced to increase costs for businesses and employers who provide health insurance to cover the rate cuts for state-insured patients.
• Many children and adults would not be able to get treatment for their health needs – including communicable diseases that can be easily spread to others.
• Hospitals would be forced to cut important – but money-losing – programs their communities rely on, including mental health services, free cancer screenings, and immunization outreach.
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