Working the halls in Olympia

OLYMPIA – With the Legislature in session for a short 60 days, most of the action will be pretty fast and furious, with 150 bills having already been pre-filed for consideration.

Seven of those belong to 6th District Sen. Jeff Holy (R-Cheney), who hopes they will not only receive hearings but also advance to the Senate floor and beyond. Six of those have received bill numbers, and three have already been scheduled for hearings in two different committees.

All three of those bills in committee are new proposals from Holy. Senate Bill 6374 in the Higher Education & Workforce Development Committee would expand the Running Start program award to cover apprenticeship materials for eligible students.

Those materials, as determined appropriate by the college or university, include occupation-specific tools, work clothes, rain gear or boots along with course-related materials.

Holy said high school instruction has moved away from the trades with more of a focus for preparing students for four-year college degrees. Metal and wood shops have been victims of budget axes, but with the baby boomer generation retiring, more need is seen for vocational skills training.

Covering the costs of apprentice materials might help encourage high school students to pursue vocations, with programs at places like the Spokane Skills Center, Spokane Valley Tech and Newtech Skill Center providing students the chance to train and get paid at the same time.

“I’m trying to put these back in the mix so people understand,” Holy said.

Two Holy bills receiving hearings in the Ways and Means Committee are SB 6317 that would keep concrete pumping businesses from being improperly double-taxed as a service industry, and SB 6314, a bill protecting taxpayers from some of the harsher aspects of home foreclosure.

SB 6314 would eliminate a 3 percent penalty “of the amount of tax delinquent” assessed “on the tax delinquent on June 1 of the year in which the tax is due,” along with a similar 8 percent penalty due on Dec. 1. If the taxpayer is participating in a repayment program, all that would remain due and payable under any program would be interest assessed prior to the payment agreement and penalties “assessed prior to the effective date of this section, that have been assessed prior to the payment agreement.”

Without eliminating these penalties, Holy said homeowners battling over payments could be forced to return to methods that got them in trouble in the first place, essentially never breaking out of the cycle of indebtedness.

“It’s a moral issue for me,” Holy said. “The penalty structure is punitive by nature, and it isn’t in the best interest (of the homeowner).”

Holy also said some counties have used these penalties as a sustainable revenue source, further compounding the problem.

Three of the bills are legislation Holy attempted to get passed while serving in the House of Representatives. SB 6315 was first proposed in 2017, and would require the state Department of Ecology to obtain legislative approval prior to establishing any enforcement policies, while SB 6316, proposed in 2016, would prohibit law enforcement officers from being assigned traffic citation quotas and their consideration in officer performance reviews.

The third bill, SB 6353, was proposed in 2018 and would require the state’s Office of Financial Management to prepare impact statements estimating the impacts of Washington Supreme Court decisions. Holy pointed to the 2012 McCleary decision on education funding and the court’s ruling to force the legislature to move up a proposed implementation process from 2019 to 2018 — a move that led to short-term higher than normal property tax assessments.

“People need to see the financial impact of these things,” Holy said. “These things should be totally transparent. You don’t get anything for free.”

Holy is hoping his bills receive bi-partisan support not only in the Senate but also the House.

“It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle it comes from,” he said. “Good policy is good policy.”

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].