In her State of the State address yesterday (reported on by the Seattle Times here), Gov. Gregoire pointed to two areas of state spending that must be tackled, for the long-term health of the budget:  health care and pension spending.  The governor noted that health care costs have doubled over the past decade, while pension costs will double in the next biennium.

In 2008, the Legislative Evaluation and Accountability Program (LEAP) Committee did a major review of state health-related spending between 1997-99 and 2005-07.  (The WashACE brief on their findings is here.)  LEAP found that health-related spending accounted for 25.8 percent of all state spending in the 1997-99 biennium–that number grew to 33.5 percent in 2005-07.

Retirement and pension benefits make up a significant part of state employees’ total benefits package.  In 2007-09, the state spent $829 million on retirement and pension benefits, which accounted for 24 percent of total benefits.