Blog

Update on Higher Education Tuition

Last week, we posted a policy brief comparing the House and Senate budgets’ treatments of higher education. Both budgets propose significant tuition hikes on state-resident undergraduate students, with the increases in the Senate budget somewhat greater than those in the House budget (11–16 percent vs. 11–13 percent). These proposals are now irrelevant, however. Early this […]

State Agency Consolidations Under Consideration

Before the legislative session began this year, Governor Gregoire made several suggestions to reorganize and consolidate state agencies.  She recommended that the state consolidate education agencies, natural resource agencies and central services; centralize IT by creating the Consolidated Technology Services agency; create an Office of Civil Rights; eliminate 36 boards and commissions; and consolidate the […]

May Report on State Tax Collections

Economic and Revenue Forecast Council issued its monthly update on revenue collections and the economy today, and while the headline number looks very good, revenue for the month $157.7 million higher than had been forecast, the underlying story was not positive. The good headline number was entirely due to the tax amnesty program, which ended […]

Contracting Out and the Budget

The Olympian today has a piece focusing on proposals to contract out some state services in the 2011-13 budget.  It also touches on state employee reactions to the proposals and talks about some of the merger ideas from the governor. The Senate budget calls for contracting out more of the state’s back-office work, a small […]

New Brief on Higher Education in the 2011-13 Budgets

We have posted a new policy brief on higher education in the House and Senate budgets, titled “Higher Education: State Funding Down, Tuition Up.” It is available through this link. Briefly: Under the House budget, NGFS+ funding for higher education would be $2.81 billion, while under the Senate budget it would be  $2.84 billion. Either […]

CBO on Public Pensions

If our recent policy brief on public pensions piqued your interest in the subject, you’re in luck — the Congressional Budget Office has released its own issue brief: The Underfunding of State and Local Pension Plans. I was glad to see it, because it does a good job of explaining the issues involved, in a […]

Tax amnesty produces more than expected …

Yesterday Gov. Gregoire announced the results of the state’s tax amnesty program. Much better than expected. (Sorry, I don’t have a link to her comments, which don’t seem to be on the governor’s website yet.) Here’s some of what she said. Our original estimate was that in the three month amnesty period we would be […]

New Brief on How Public Schools Fare in 2011-13 Budgets

Following last week’s brief on proposed 2011-13 expenditures in the human services budget area, today we take a look at public schools.  (See also this brief for an overview of the House and Senate budget plans.) Spending on public schools would increase over 2009-11 levels in both the House- and Senate-passed budgets.  Maintenance level changes […]

Annual vs. Biennial Budgeting

In March, the Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Institute of Government released a study on revenue estimating in the states.  They found that in 2009, the errors by states in forecasting personal income, sales, and corporate income tax collections added up to a $49 billion unexpected revenue shortfall. Additionally: In the states […]

Pew on Public Pensions

This week the Pew Center on the States put out a report on state pensions and retiree health care costs.  Pew finds that the gap between the promises states made for employees’ retirement benefits and the money they set aside to pay for them grew to at least $1.26 trillion in fiscal year 2009, resulting […]