This week, governor-elect Bob Ferguson released a budget proposal for the 2025-27 biennium that boosts spending on schools and programs to increase affordable housing for families. At the same time, Ferguson’s budget proposes to cut 6 percent from most state agencies without the wealth tax put forward in outgoing Gov. Jay Inslee’s budget proposal, released in December.
While the governor and the governor-elect’s proposals are in sync in many areas, Ferguson’s determination to increase school funding to a higher percentage of the state’s budget and avoid a wealth tax offer the first hints of how he will differ from Inslee as the state’s top leader.
Ferguson will be sworn in as Governor on January 15, two days after the opening of the 2025 legislative session.
Universal school meals
Among other things, Ferguson’s budget would fund universal free lunches for students in Washington.
“I am really pleased to see funding for breakfast and lunch,” said Jennifer Dolan-Waldman, a former school principal and legislative liaison for the Seattle advocacy group Grandmothers Against Gun Violence (GAGV).
“As a mother and grandmother, I know that dealing with a hungry person of any age can be a challenge,” Dolan-Waldman said. “As an educator, I know that trying to teach children who are hungry makes for a very poor learning environment, sometimes leading to arguments and conflict because the hungry person is on edge and physically uncomfortable.”
More police recruits
From her role as grandmother and lead advocate for GAGV, Dolan-Waldman was also pleased to see that Ferguson proposes to invest $200 million in recruiting new police officers.
“This speaks to Ferguson’s awareness that we need more than just bodies; we need officers coming into that role with a fresh awareness and a community orientation,” she said. Currently, Washington state ranks last in the country in terms of law enforcement officers per capita.
Increased access to child care
Ferguson’s budget proposal would also increase access to subsidized child care, raising the income eligibility level for the Washington Working Connections affordable childcare program from about $73,000 to $91,200.
“This policy will make it more affordable for tens of thousands of families to live in Washington,” states the Ferguson proposal.
Inslee proposed delaying the expansion to save $296 million against the state’s projected biennium budget shortfall of $10 billion.
Increased school funding
As for state funding of schools, an issue at the heart of a year-long debate over proposed school closures in the Seattle School District, Ferguson says that Inslee’s proposal to spend only 42 percent of the state budget on public schools does not go far enough.
“That percentage is unacceptable,” Ferguson wrote in his budget outline. “The final budget must invest a higher percentage of the total budget toward K-12 schools.”
After reviewing Ferguson’s budget priorities, Arik Korman, CEO of the Seattle-based League of Education Voters (LEV), considered the document more of a guiding principles document than a funding directive. He said it does not contain enough details for LEV to comment at length.
“Seeing the investments to provide free school meals to all students is great, but it is non-specific on any other changes to K-12,” Korman said.
Increasing access to affordable housing
Ferguson’s budget recognizes that the state will need more than a million new homes over the next two decades as its population increases and that nearly half of families renting homes in the state spend more than 30 percent or more of their income on housing.
To address the need, his budget would invest $600 million to build 200,000 housing units in Washington over the next four years and support affordable housing programs.
Addressing a $10 billion shortfall without new revenue?
Ferguson said in a letter preface to his budget priorities that he will seek to balance the budget with cuts rather than support new taxes, including Inslee’s proposed wealth tax.
“I am focused on identifying opportunities for savings first and will only focus on revenue after we have scrubbed the budget for savings and reductions,” he wrote. “I am deeply skeptical that we can rely on balancing the budget through an untested wealth tax.”
“These reductions will be challenging, but ultimately, I believe they will improve our capacity to serve the people,” he added.
Korman, for his part, is skeptical about meeting the state’s needs and, in particular, students’ needs without new revenue streams.
“Overall, not including any new revenue is going to make for a very challenging session,” he said. “And impossible for it not to impact schools even if not directly.”
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