The need to permanently downsize state government is a reality that Gov. Chris Gregoire has come to accept only reluctantly.
Share your ideas on changing the budget at http://transformwabudget.ideascale.com.
Since 2008, Gregoire and Democratic legislative leaders have used stopgap measures, including tapping federal stimulus dollars, borrowing from pension funds, slashing enrollment in the state’s Basic Health Plan by 40,000 and suspending voter-approved school funding initiatives, to plug a $12 billion hole.
But as Gregoire explained to an audience of 400 at Clark College last week, what seemed like a temporary emergency in 2008 has now morphed into a semi-permanent situation. Reduced revenue and increased demand for services will leave the state in deficit at least through 2015, according to state revenue projections. And it’s unlikely the state will get bailed out by the federal government again anytime soon.
Some Republican leaders, including state Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, have been calling on the governor and the majority party since state revenue began to tank three years ago to set priorities and fund the core missions of government first.
Now, midway through her second term, Gregoire says she’s ready to heed that advice.
The governor is asking for help from state agency heads, a panel of 32 state leaders, and Washington citizens, including more than 1,200 who attended her first three budget forums around the state. People with ideas also are invited to contribute them via a special website, where they can also vote on other people’s suggestions for making state government leaner.
In the 10 days since the site was launched, more than 1,700 ideas — from replacing out-of-town travel with video conferences to reducing ads for the state lottery to lifting the ban on export of state logs — have been submitted. Nearly 107,000 votes have been cast.
How about selling advertising on state agency websites? That’s not really a reach; one option Gregoire and her team are considering is selling naming rights for bridges, roads, buildings, ferries, even roadside rest areas.
The governor is quick to point out that on her watch, plenty of programs have been cut or streamlined already.
For example, the state has begun the process of closing some state prisons and consolidating others, which will save $53 million over the next two years.
It has ended a program that trains newly elected local government officials.
It is now billing insurance companies for the cost of children’s vaccines that were once paid for out of the state general fund.
It has given university boards of regents the authority to raise tuition to offset cuts in higher education funding, within a cap set by the Legislature. That’s meant a 33 percent increase in tuition over two years for thousands of Washington college students.
It has transferred two state parks to local or tribal governments, and may transfer three more next year.
Beginning in 2012, it will transfer case management for some child welfare cases from state caseworkers to private agencies.
And it has closed or modified 21 licensing offices around the state while expanding on-line services.
And that’s just the beginning.
As agency heads comb their budgets, trying to separate essential services from the nice-to-have, they are being instructed to ask a series of questions about each program they provide:
Is the activity an essential service? Does state government have to perform it, or can it be provided by others? Can it be eliminated or suspended? Can a portion of the cost be covered with user fees? Are federal funds or other sources available to help subsidize it? And are there more cost-effective ways to get the job done?
Here are some of the ideas that may land on Gregoire’s desk as she writes the 2011-13 budget over the next four months:
• Suspend the popular Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program, which pools state and federal funds to acquire and develop outdoor recreation sites and preserve habitat for fish and wildlife.
• Further reduce the number of developmentally disabled people who are housed in state-run residential programs and transition some to community-based care.
• Raise fees to adult family home providers who serve the elderly and disabled to help pay for the cost of licensing and monitoring them.
• Charge holders of state water rights for the cost of processing applications for new or transferred water rights.
• Increase the use of tolls to fund new bridges and other major new transportation projects, including the Columbia River Crossing.
• Get Washington out of the ferry business by privatizing the operation of state ferries, which are currently part of the state highway system.
Contributors to the new website have given the governor and her advisers plenty of additional ideas to chew on. Some are impracticable or unenforceable, but others could have merit, like ending state contributions to art in public buildings, requiring more top managers to take state furlough days, eliminating the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, and turning over the administration of highway rest areas to fast-food franchises.
What emerges from this process, Gregoire says, will be a more limited government, one focused on the state’s core missions: basic education, health care, safety for the most vulnerable, protection of natural resources, promotion of economic development and efficiency in delivery of services.
In an interview before Tuesday’s budget forum in Vancouver, Gregoire put on her game face.
“I’m confident the process can unfold in a bipartisan way,” she said.
Gregoire entered office in an era of budget surpluses. Together with the Democratic majority in both chambers of the Legislature, she launched ambitious programs to improve preschool and K-12 education and revamp health care.
While she still holds those values, she admitted, “Events have overwhelmed me.”
The governor is looking forward now, not back to those days of fat budget surpluses that she knows won’t return in the foreseeable future.
“We’re going to fall off the cliff without federal money,” she said. “We’ve got to ask, ‘How can we restructure and transform state government for the long haul?’” She’s determined to get the job done.
But Gregoire admits she does occasionally ask herself, “Why in the world did this have to happen on my watch?”
Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.
