Budget

Treasury on the allowable uses of the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds

As I noted Tuesday, Washington’s state and local governments will receive $7.120 billion from the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds, which are part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act. The fiscal recovery funds may generally be used for costs related to the pandemic and its negative economic impacts; to provide premium pay […]

Washington will get more than previously expected from federal coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has released official allocations for the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds, as well as an interim final rule providing guidance on how the funds may be used. Washington State Wire has an overview here. Like the coronavirus relief fund (CRF, part of the CARES Act), the state […]

Across operating, capital, and transportation budgets, Legislature appropriated $10.1 billion in federal relief dollars (on top of $7.2 billion previously allocated)

Over $24 billion in federal relief has flown or will flow through Washington’s state and local governments. Of that, $7.238 billion was allocated by the governor last year or appropriated by the Legislature in early action bills this session. As part of the final operating, capital, and transportation budgets this session, the Legislature appropriated an […]

Including federal relief funds, the spending increases in the operating budget proposals are extraordinarily high

As I showed yesterday, the state has already allocated or appropriated $7.311 billion in federal relief dollars. On top of that, the Senate-passed operating budget would appropriate $6.837 billion and the House-passed operating budget would appropriate $8.776 billion in federal relief over three years. This relief funding does not just maintain state spending (as the […]

Senate- and House-passed budgets would appropriate $8.426 billion and $10.166 billion, respectively, in federal relief funding

Federal COVID relief legislation since March 2020 has appropriated more than $24 billion that has flowed or will flow through Washington’s state and local governments. Allocations from the latest bill, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act, are still being determined, so the $24 billion figure will grow. (Indeed, note that the numbers in this post […]

Including federal relief funds, 2019–21 spending in the Senate W&M chair’s operating budget would increase by 33% over 2017–19

The Senate W&M chair’s operating budget proposal would appropriate $52.701 billion in 2019–21 and $59.215 billion in 2021–23 from funds subject to the outlook (NGFO). Those amounts represent increases of 17.9% and 12.4% over the previous biennium, respectively. However, they do not include the federal relief funds the state has received and will receive. According […]

Transportation and capital budget proposals would appropriate some federal COVID relief dollars

Yesterday the chair and ranking member of the House Capital Budget Committee released their proposed capital budget for 2021–23. The House and Senate Transportation Committee chairs released their proposed transportation budgets on Monday. The three budgets would make use of federal funding that is expected to come to Washington from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) […]

How will the Senate operating budget deal with the “curse of riches”?

As Sen. Rolfes suggested at the Ways & Means Committee meeting last week, the operating budget (to be proposed this afternoon) may not have a complete plan for all the federal relief funding coming to Washington. (See also David Schumacher’s comments on Sunday’s episode of AWB’s Capitol Focus.) It is not yet clear exactly how […]

Washington will receive $229 million from the ARP Act for COVID testing in schools; operating budgets will be proposed this week

On March 17, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it will use $10 billion in funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act for COVID-19 screening testing to help schools reopen. According to HHS, Washington will receive $229.4 million for this purpose. This is the first announcement of how billions of […]

Washington’s state and local governments will have more than $11 billion in federal relief funding to distribute from the ARP Act

There are several funding buckets in the ARP Act. The largest that will be distributed by states and local governments are the fiscal relief funds and the emergency and secondary school emergency relief funds. But there’s also funding for childcare, transit, and rental assistance, for example. The table below shows known and estimated federal allocations […]