Yesterday Senators Frockt, Honeyford, Mullet, and Schoesler proposed a 2022 supplemental capital budget. (A summary and other documents are available here. The bill, SB 5651, is scheduled for public hearing by Ways & Means this afternoon.)

The proposal would increase capital appropriations for 2021–23 by $1.243 billion from all funds. (That’s $51.3 million more than Gov. Inslee proposed.) If adopted, total capital appropriations for 2021–23 would increase to $7.791 billion.

The proposal would appropriate $115.0 million for the school seismic safety program in SSB 5933, which the Senate passed last week. Additionally, funding for the school construction assistance program would be reduced from $730.6 million to $540.7 million. According to the budget documents, the savings “reflects lower than anticipated demand to qualified school districts for the construction, renovation, and modernization of K-12 school facilities in fiscal year 2023.”

Federal funds make up 70.4% of the increased appropriations in the proposed supplemental. (Federal funds make up 14.6% of enacted 2021–23 capital appropriations.)

The proposal would appropriate $561.6 million from the coronavirus state fiscal recovery fund (CSFRF). (That’s the same amount as in the governor’s proposal.) That includes:

• $290.0 million for rapid capital housing,
• $86.0 million for crisis stabilization facilities,
• $74.7 million for new housing stocks,
• $71.0 million for affordable housing, and
• $55.4 million for rapid capital housing acquisition.

Those appropriations are offset by some reductions. For example, the enacted 2021–23 capital budget appropriated $102.6 million from the CSFRF for broadband. In the proposed supplemental, funding for that purpose is moved from the CSFRF to the federal coronavirus capital projects account.

Additionally, the proposal would allocate $290.3 million from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). That includes:

• $105.0 million for broadband,
• $69.8 million for the weatherization plus health program,
• $63.8 million for safer drinking water, and
• $33.0 million for water pollution control (this program would also receive $200 million in state funding).

Finally, the proposal would appropriate $44.5 million to cover “the inflationary cost increases of materials and supply chain issues.” Of that, $29.5 million would come from the CSFRF.

If this proposal is adopted, the state would have $711.4 million left of its share of the CSFRF.