Our part-time legislative budgeting process needs work

Being a state legislator is a thankless job — almost as bad as being a Hoopfest court monitor. And even more so this session what with the Legislature needing not only the four-month regular session but also two overtime special sessions and a last-minute, late-night negotiating meeting to pass the $38.2 billion 2015-2017 operating budget.

And even then, apparently not all the work is finished as the whole package could unravel over funding, or not funding, K-12 classroom-reduction initiative 1351. We’ll know how the state Senate deals with this issue in the coming days or weeks.

Much has been written and lamented over regarding the length of this latest session, and how the budget has been derived and negotiated. Legislators usually don’t get down to serious number crunching until after state revenue projections are released late in the session in March.

It should be noted that, while the budget is the most important document in the odd-year session, it’s not the only thing legislators travel to Olympia to accomplish. Before the numbers work begins, our representatives are engaged in writing legislation and eventually holding committee hearings and floor votes on bills that deal with how our state is run, including items pertaining to the yet to be fixed budget.

This past session, lawmakers passed a nine-page list of bills that dealt with everything from relating or prohibiting unfair and deceptive dental insurance practices to biotoxin testing and monitoring to marine fuel tax refunds, transit agency coordination, charity supporter tax relief and the Washington State Health Care Exchange.

Those who travel to Olympia to meet with their legislators during session know how busy they are, and how precious their time can be. And while we sometimes complain about what we pay them, let’s remember they are still our next door neighbors, local business leaders and entrepreneurs and not full-time, professional politicians.

We have the latter in that other Washington back east.

But something does need to be done about how the budgeting process works. It’s not fair to those who rely on those numbers in order to produce their own budgets under state-mandated time regulations, such as state agencies, school districts and universities, to have to play the guessing game in hopes of getting it right.

It affects everyone downstream, such as cities and counties, who also rely on solid budgeting figures to make their own plans for the future.

Some have suggested the budget process needs to be more transparent. With negotiations out in the open, there would be less reneging on promises and agreements and counter claims about what is in or isn’t in the budget proposals.

Transparency is always good in a democracy. It provides public accountability.

But in this often uber-partisan climate, we wonder if the budgeting process would turn less serious as either side postures to their respective extremes in order to preserve voter support during election season.

Another way might be to stagger the session itself. Members could meet from January to February to pass needed, non-budgetary legislation, take a breather in March when revenue numbers are released, and then return in April — and April only — to hash out budget details.

This proposal might still crimp the budgeting process for those other agencies, and how legislators could be limited to only April remains to be seen.

In the end, perhaps the best way to reduce the length of legislative sessions and arrive at state budgets earlier is to remind our representatives that successful negotiations aren’t about how firmly one stands on ones ideology, but how readily one is to compromise on ideology in favor of the bigger picture benefiting everyone.