Seattle City Council to Leg: repeal ban on rent control, but don't hurt housing supply
Yesterday afternoon the Seattle City Council passed (8-1) a resolution asking the state Legislature to lift the state ban on rent control (and other rent regulations). This resolution is not the one I wrote about last week. Last week’s resolution, which received a tie vote in committee, explicitly endorsed rent control or something like it: […]
September 18 , 2015 - Emily Makings
Washington's wine industry has $4.8 billion economic impact
The Washington State Wine Commission has released an economic impact study of Washington’s wine industry. In 2013, the industry’s total economic impact was $4.8 billion in business revenues and it paid $61.9 million in state taxes. (To put that in perspective, according to a study of the apple industry, its economic impact was $7.5 billion […]
September 18 , 2015 - Emily Makings
Tie vote on rent control in Seattle City Council committee
The Seattle Times reports that rent control efforts at the Seattle City Council have “stalled.” But the issue is not dead. Yesterday the Council’s Committee on Housing Affordability, Human Services and Economic Resiliency voted 3-3 on a resolution calling for the Legislature to “repeal or modify” RCW 35.21.830, which bans rent control in the state. […]
September 18 , 2015 - Mary Strow
September 16 , 2015 - Mary Strow
September 15 , 2015 - Mary Strow
Stanford study shows improved charter school performance – especially in urban areas
Even before the state Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional, charter schools were a topic that engendered heated debate (at least here in Washington; charter schools are perfectly constitutional in 41 other states). Therefore, data, backed up by solid research, provides a welcome relief from the rhetoric. For some years now the Center for Research on […]
September 15 , 2015 - Emily Makings
What's to be done about charter schools, part 2
Yesterday I went over some of the possible responses to the state Supreme Court’s decision that charter schools are unconstitutional. I neglected to bring up an odd point from the majority opinion, which comes in the footnote to this sentence (page 12-13): . . . under the terms of the Act’s provisions the source of […]
September 14 , 2015 - Kriss Sjoblom
Most of the good news in today's update to the state revenue forecast is old news
The state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council held its quarterly meeting today. The forecast of general fund–state (GF–S) revenue for the current biennium (2015–17) increased to $37,091.0 million from the $36,758.1 million that had been forecasted in May. However, the $332.9 million gain is more than accounted for by above-forecast collections reported in July, August […]
September 14 , 2015 - Emily Makings
What's to be done about charter schools?
The Olympian had a good article over the weekend on the various ideas floating around about how to resolve the charter school situation. These include: Ask the Court to reconsider, which the attorney general is planning to do. This “is a long shot.” Amend the constitution. Make charters more like alternative schools, which are overseen […]
September 14 , 2015 - Emily Makings
Evaluating a governor by his budgets
At FiveThirtyEight, Ben Casselman writes about How To Evaluate The Economic Records Of Governors Who Want To Be President. His main points: Look beyond their term of office. Consider the national picture. Ignore balanced-budget claims. Follow the money. Number three is the interesting one to me. Casselman writes, Governors love to brag about how they […]