The Washington State Standard reports that Sen. June Robinson, chair of Senate Ways and Means, has told legislators not to make spending requests this year: “We don’t have money to pay for what is needed, let alone new spending that members might request.”

Indeed, with the September revenue forecast, the unrestricted ending balance in funds subject to the outlook (NGFO) is estimated to be negative $421 million in 2025–27. The shortfall, before assuming any changes to enacted appropriations, is about $1.2 billion over the outlook period.

Although the revenue forecast declined in June and September, the operating budget was not sustainable as enacted. It left extraordinarily low ending balances that could not absorb the reduction to the revenue forecast, even though the Legislature knew that there would be more budget problems ahead.

It would certainly be wise to limit new spending next year. It would have been even better if the Legislature had limited spending in 2023, 2024, and 2025. As I noted the other day, the Legislature increased appropriations for 2023–25 by 15.8% even though revenues were expected to increase by just 3.5%. That is the hole we must dig out of.

The problem is not that existing services are costing more (as implied in recent stories from the Standard and the Center Square). The problem is that the Legislature has consistently increased net new policy spending. For example, the Legislature has appropriated net new policy of:

• $3.087 billion for 2021–23 in 2021,
• $6.189 billion for 2021–23 in 2022,
• $4.744 billion for 2023–25 (and -$1.179 billion for 2021–23) in 2023,
• $1.033 billion for 2023–25 in 2024, and
• $1.024 billion for 2025–27 (and -$56.9 million for 2023–25) in 2025.

Altogether, net appropriations for new policy have added $14.8 billion over just five years. If the new policy is planned to be ongoing (instead of one-time), it becomes part of the maintenance level (the cost of continuing current services, adjusted for caseload and inflation) for the next year.