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Seattle's $15 minimum wage debate heats up; Jordan Royer article in Crosscut provides needed perspective

The Seattle City Council and the Mayor’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee held a joint public hearing last night on the $15 minimum wage proposal. The Seattle Times has the story. It sounds like quite a show. About 700 people, many wearing red T-shirts with “15” on the front, cheered calls to enact a pay increase […]

Today's column on a swift budget resolution and on-time end to the legislative session

In my column, I speculate that the legislative session will end on time as lawmakers are very close to agreement on the basic contours of the budget. Few legislators want a repeat of last year’s marathon. A special session is unnecessary and unlikely. The side that wants the least typically prevails in these negotiations. By […]

House and Senate base budgets are close; that's before you get to House-proposed new taxes and school spending

Yesterday House Democrats proposed their 2014 supplemental budget (documents here). It’s the time of year when things happen quickly; the Appropriations Committee hearing was last night at 6:00 In addition to a base budget, which closely resembles the plan introduced earlier by the Senate Majority Coalition, the House rolled out a proposal to increase taxes […]

Senate Democrats propose $100 million in new taxes for education, teacher COLAs

This morning Democrats in the state Senate laid out a plan to put another $100 million into the state budget for education, including cost-of-living adjustments for teachers. (Here’s the press release.) The new taxes, which they characterize as “closing unproductive loopholes,” are recycled from past efforts to boost revenues: applying the sales tax to bottled […]

Bipartisan supplemental budget proposal from state Senate adds $96 million, no tax hikes

Senate Ways and Means chairman Andy Hill, R-Redmond, just concluded a press conference unveiling his proposed 2014 supplemental operating budget. To underscore the bipartisan nature of the process, he was joined by the Democrats’ lead budget writer Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam and other Republicans and Democrats involved in developing the proposal. Although Hill had previously said […]

Teacher evaluation bill goes down, putting $44 million of school funding at risk

In a session when there’s been a lot of talk about education funding, what with the McCleary decision and an impatient state Supreme Court, a sensible tweak in how the state uses teacher evaluations should have been easy. The Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy (WashACE) makes clear what’s at stake. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats […]

Lawsuits pending in 11 states over adequacy of education funding

Washington is not alone in facing court troubles over school funding. Stateline.org reports today on just how frequently litigation and education funding have become entwined. Across the country, litigation is pending against 11 states over inadequate or inequitable school funding. That is nothing new: Over the years, all but five states have been the subjects […]

It's a competitive world: Management prof recommends Microsoft move to San Francisco

It’s no secret that much of the world covets Washington’s twin economic engines, aerospace and technology, anchored by Boeing and Microsoft. And it’s no secret that this state occasionally takes its prosperity for granted. Every so often, Boeing will remind lawmakers that complacency is not a prize-winning strategy. But for the most part, Olympia tends […]

Minimum wage bill passes out of House committee; closing skills gap a better solution

Yesterday, on a 5-4 party line vote, the House Labor and Workforce Development Committee passed HB 2672, which would raise the statewide minimum wage to $12. Committee passage was expected. Whether there are the votes in the full House to increase the wage is somewhat in doubt. And it’s a certainty that the Senate will […]

Seattle's income inequality "not as bad as you think," plus bonus links on mobility and the minimum wage

Emily Parkhurst reviews income data in the Puget Sound Business Journal and finds the metro area is doing pretty well. The national debate over income inequality and raising the minimum wage may begetting a lot of attention here in the Seattle area, but this region is one of the best in the country to go […]