Emily Makings

Govistics on Taxes in Gold Bar

Our friends at the Center for Governmental Research in New York have a very handy product that helps users find and compare public finance data for U.S. states, counties, towns, school districts, etc: Govistics. In a blog post today, they link to a story about Gold Bar's decision to ask voters to agree to a […]

The Economist on Charter Schools

Next week’s Economist magazine has an article on charter schools. The article is published online just before signatures are due for the public charter school initiative in Washington (I-1240). Dick has written on the initiative and charter schools here, here, and here. As Dick mentioned, state Rep. Eric Pettigrew has said, Forty-one other states have […]

Some Thoughts on the Health Care Reform Ruling

As everyone is well aware of by now, the Supreme Court ruled this morning on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Court upheld the law, including the individual mandate–but under the taxing power, not the Commerce Clause. Additionally, the Court decided that states are not required to take part in […]

Public Pension Accounting Changes

Yesterday the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) approved new standards for public employee pension accounting. The new standards will not directly affect pension liabilities; rather, they make the true nature of those liabilities more clear. As GASB’s chairman said of the changes, The new standards will improve the way state and local governments report their […]

New Brief: Characteristics of a Healthy Business Climate

In a new policy brief, we look at how Washington fares in nine recent business climate rankings. The rankings come from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, the Beacon Hill Institute, Chief Executive magazine, Site Selection magazine, Forbes, CNBC, Thumbtack.com, and Development Counsellors, Inc. Criteria and emphasis differ among the […]

New Brief: Implementing Washington's Health Benefit Exchange

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (federal health care reform) is a hot topic these days, as the Supreme Court is expected to release its decision on the constitutionality of the law soon. One part of the federal legislation is a requirement that states establish health benefit exchanges through which individuals and small businesses […]

Retirement and Life Expectancy

The Economist Online has an interesting chart today on retirement. It shows life expectancies, official retirement ages, and effective retirement ages in 1970 and 2010, for 22 countries. As the Economist notes, pensionable ages have failed to keep pace with longevity.This comes at an increasing cost to the state. The OECD expects governments' expenditure on […]

State Auditor on Spending in Public Schools

Yesterday I pointed out the legislature’s new 2012 Citizen’s Guide to K-12 Finance. The state auditor’s office has also released a report on public school spending. The performance audit considers: What percentage of Washington’s educational dollars is spent on classroom instruction, and how does it compare with other states? How do expenditures at individual school […]

Public Schools Financing

The Senate Ways and Means Committee has released its 2012 Citizen's Guide to K-12 Finance.It talks about recent court rulings related to state funding of education (and legislative responses to them), looks at how much is spent on education (by several different measures) and where the money goes, and makes some comparisons to other states. […]

Public Pensions Face a "Painful Reckoning"

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a good overview of the problem with public pension assumed rates of return on investments. As the article begins, “Few investors are more bullish these days than public pension funds.” The issue is that many public pension funds assume rates of return around 8 percent — much […]