Budget

Hold harmless funding has been proposed for school districts; beware the potential bow wave

In Washington, most K–12 funding is tied to enrollment. Because K–12 caseloads decreased in the current school year (due to the pandemic and remote learning), maintenance level spending (the cost of continuing current services, adjusted for enrollment and inflation) is expected to decrease as well. Gov. Inslee proposes booking those savings. But Representatives Dolan and […]

Washington has over a billion dollars from the latest round of federal relief funding to distribute; how should such funds be dealt with in the future (if the Legislature is not in session)?

Washington has received billions of dollars in federal COVID relief funding since the Legislature adjourned last year. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has been tracking the federal relief dollars. They estimate that state and local relief funding for Washington is up to about $6.43 billion. (That includes, for example, the coronavirus relief fund, […]

Public higher education institutions in Washington will receive $329.5 million from federal COVID relief bill passed last month

The federal CARES Act (enacted in March 2020) included a Higher Education Emergency Relief (HEER I) Fund, which provided relief funding directly to public and private higher education institutions. The CARES Act generally required institutions to use 50% of their allocations for student financial aid grants. According to the U.S. Department of Education, public and […]

House and Senate Democrats propose spending $164.3 million from the rainy day fund and would direct how to spend $2.425 billion of federal funding

Friday afternoon Democrats in the House and Senate announced their early action relief bills (HB 1367 and HB 1368, and companion bills SB 5343 and SB 5344). Together, the bills would appropriate $2.589 billion from state and local funds ($164.3 million from the rainy day fund and $2.425 billion in federal funds). Of that, $403.6 […]

A new bill would use the rainy day fund to provide COVID–19 relief for individuals, businesses, and schools and direct how to allocate federal relief funds

Today Rep. Stokesbary introduced HB 1334. The bill would appropriate $4.175 billion in state and federal funds for COVID-19 relief for the 2019–21 biennium. Of that, $1.735 billion would come from the budget stabilization account (BSA, or the rainy day fund) and $2.440 billion would come from federal funds. The federal funds allocated are from […]

Bill would exempt amounts businesses have received in government-funded grants and forgiven loans from the B&O tax (and other state taxes)

Through Aug. 8, 2020, 107,659 paycheck protection program (PPP) loans were made to businesses in Washington. The total amount of the loans was $12.465 billion. Nationally, $525.012 billion was loaned to 5,212,128 businesses. The program was first established in the federal CARES Act, to provide funding for businesses—mainly to keep employees on the payroll during […]

Rental assistance funding in Gov. Inslee’s budget proposals and federal relief bills

The new federal relief bill appropriates $25 billion for emergency rental assistance. It will be distributed to states and local governments using the same methodology as the Coronavirus Relief Fund (except local governments will get direct federal allocations if their populations exceed 200,000 instead of 500,000). It’s not clear how much Washington will receive, but […]

How the pandemic is affecting public school funding in Washington and elsewhere in the U.S.

A New York Times article last week looked at public school funding issues related to the pandemic. The new federal aid bill, which was signed by the president on Sunday, includes $54.3 billion for the elementary and secondary school emergency relief (ESSER) fund. (That’s on top of $13.5 billion for this purpose that was part […]

Washington has allocated more than it received from the coronavirus relief fund

Originally, states and local governments had until Dec. 30, 2020 to use their shares of the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF). Gov. Inslee has allocated $2.218 billion—$50.6 million more than the state government received from the federal government. This is based on allocation memos posted by the Office of Financial Management (OFM) to date. (The […]

Washington will use federal CARES Act funds to provide “pandemic relief payments” in response to the lapse in federal unemployment insurance benefits

Earlier this month, Gov. Inslee announced that Washington would use $54.6 million of the state’s share of the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) for unemployment insurance benefits for people in the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, if the federal government didn’t act to extend the program before it was set to expire on Dec. […]