The Washington State Standard reports that there is talk among legislators of reversing a planned transfer of ongoing revenues from the operating budget to the transportation budget.

In December 2024, legislative staff estimated that there would be substantial shortfalls in the transportation accounts. The 2025–27 transportation budget included a revenue package that was used mainly for existing projects. As a result, the transportation budget balanced through 2027–29. (Transportation budgets are only required to balance over the current biennium, but they have traditionally balanced over longer periods due to the long-term nature of capital projects. The 2023–25 budget, for example, balanced over six years.)

One piece of the revenue package was the permanent dedication of 0.1% of the state retail sales and use tax to the multimodal transportation account, beginning in fiscal year 2028 (the first year of 2027–29). The budgets assumed that this would increase transportation budget revenues (and decrease operating budget revenues) by $608 million in 2027–29. The November transportation revenue forecast estimates that the revenues from this provision will total $583.8 million in 2027–29.

Altogether, the new transportation revenues made the transportation budget more sustainable in the near term. But, adjusted for inflation, transportation revenues are expected to decline each year beginning in FY 2029. Reversing the sales tax transfer would exacerbate that.

Nevertheless, with the operating budget facing another shortfall, apparently some legislators would prefer to keep the 0.1% of sales tax revenues in the operating budget. Indeed, according to the Standard:

“It was not popular among all lawmakers when we did it,” Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett, said last month.

Advocates at the time worried it would shortchange public school funding, which the state constitution calls the government’s “paramount duty.”

It would not, in fact, shortchange public school funding. The state supreme court has said that, under the paramount duty clause, the state must “amply provide for the education of all Washington children as the State’s first and highest priority before any other State programs or operations” (emphasis added). In 2025–27, the state has appropriated $33.667 billion from funds subject to the outlook (NGFO) for public schools. Total NGFO revenues are estimated to be $74.449 billion in 2025–27 and $79.352 billion in 2027–29 (excluding the 0.1% sales tax revenue). An additional $583.8 million in 2027–29 would mean that the state would have that much more to spend on non-K–12 budget areas.