The Office of Financial Management (OFM) has negotiated collective bargaining agreements with state and certain non-state employees for 2025–27. Generally, the CBAs for state employees include wage increases of 3% for FY 2026 and 2% for FY 2027 and they maintain the 85% employer contribution to health care. Additionally, the CBAs include targeted job classification increases. The CBAs are estimated to increase general fund–state (GFS) spending by $646.2 million in 2025–27 and by $774.1 million in 2027–29.

OFM also negotiates with certain non-state employees: adult family homes, family child care providers, and language access providers. The agreements with them would increase GFS spending by $160.6 million in 2025–27 and by $173.1 million in 2027–29.

Finally, OFM negotiates a health care agreement with K–12 school employees. It is estimated to increase GFS spending by $569.4 million in 2025–27 and by $526.4 million in 2027–29.

Altogether, the agreements would increase GFS spending by $1.376 billion in 2025–27 and by $1.474 billion in 2027–29. (These estimates do not include the cost of extending the terms of the agreements to non-represented employees.)

If the agreements are determined to be financially feasible and Gov. Inslee includes their costs in his 2025–27 budget proposal, the Legislature must either approve or reject them as a whole (RCW 41.80.010).

Meanwhile, members of the Washington Public Employees Association rejected the tentative agreements. The Washington State Standard reports that the union has “signaled its willingness to restart talks with the Office of Financial Management.” However, even if they come to an agreement before the end of the year, the governor may not, under state law, include it in his budget proposal. Further, “The legislature shall not consider a request for funds to implement a collective bargaining agreement unless the request is transmitted to the legislature as part of the governor’s budget document” (RCW 41.80.010).