Governor unveils supplemental budget

GOVERNOR UNVEILS SUPPLEMENTAL BUDGET; MORE FOR QUALITY CARE, KIDS, PUBLIC SAFETY, PARKS

Inslee proposes supplemental budget that finally enacts capital-construction budget, upgrades to institutions, natural resources, public safety, parks higher education

Gov. Jay Inslee today (Dec. 14) proposed a 2018 Supplemental Budget including the full 2017-2019 Capital-Construction Budget.

That $4.5 billion plan still has not passed because the former Senate majority refused to vote on it.

Now, there is a new Democratic majority and it’s believed that logjam will end.

Inslee blasted that budget hostage-taking, saying 52 state employees have been laid off because of the “hijinks” here in Olympia on the Capital-Construction Budget.

He demanded that the Legislature approve the Capital-Construction Budget in the first week of the 2018 session. The 60-day session starts Jan. 8.

The $4.5 billion capital budget would support more than 19,000 jobs across the state. Among other actions, the budget includes more than $1 billion to fund over 100 school construction projects as well as funding for essential improvements at the state’s psychiatric hospitals, cleanup projects at brownfield sites to encourage new housing to alleviate homelessness, and repairs and new projects at numerous state college and university facilities.

On revenue, the governor proposed a carbon tax, with details on that and other revenue proposals coming in January.

The supplemental budget also includes about $113 million to cover higher operating costs at the state’s psychiatric hospitals and to make changes to maintain federal funding for Western State Hospital. With that extra funding, 90 hospital staff will be hired to improve the quality of care. In addition, nearly 15 general maintenance staff will be hired to ensure the facility is safe and secure. The budget also dedicates $10 million for 45 new forensic beds at Western State Hospital. These are in addition to the 30 forensic beds that were funded in last year’s budget.

Meanwhile, the state’s costs for fighting wildfires this year totaled nearly $67 million — about $42 million more than was provided in the underlying budget. The governor’s budget would cover that shortfall.

The supplemental budget is a spending plan that makes adjustments to the much-larger biennial budget approved by the Legislature last summer.

On institutions, the governor proposed continued new spending on mental health. Much improvement has been made there, “but the job is not done,” he said.

The governor’s supplemental 2018 budget continues the state’s commitment to the operation of safe and compliant hospitals. His budget adds staff to improve patient care and funds the tools to ensure accountability in the operations of the hospitals. His budget also continues work to transform the hospitals by adding forensic capacity and sets the stage for future steps to meet patient needs across the state. That includes:

Mental health

  • Provide high-quality patient care to individuals referred through behavioral health organizations, the civil court system or the criminal justice system to Western and Eastern State hospitals.
  • Hire 100 staff to improve medical care, and life and safety conditions. Funding also is provided to address remaining facility deficiencies and strengthen the quality improvement program. Full funding is necessary to comply with the plan of correction submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
  • Hire approximately 53 staff to operate 45 new forensic beds at Western State Hospital. New forensic ward capacity is necessary to meet rising demand from court referrals for competency evaluations and restoration.
  • Hire 18 staff in the Office of Forensic Mental Health Services to provide timely competency evaluation and restoration services. Individuals needing an inpatient mental health evaluation must receive a complete evaluation within seven days of a signed court order, and individuals in jail must be evaluated within 14 days.

Juvenile Rehabilitation

  • Hire 15.2 staff to operate acute mental health programs for youth at Green High School and Echo Glen Children’s Center. Youth committed to the custody of the state have more treatment needs than other youth involved with the state juvenile justice system.

Developmental Disabilities

  • SOLA community options.  Provide 47 community residential placements in state operated living alternatives for individuals residing in residential habilitation centers and who have requested community placements. The department has been unable to find community providers to serve these clients at current rates. Placements will be phased in over a three-year period.

Higher Education (includes)

  • Expand South Seattle College’s Washington State Labor Education and Research Center by three staff. The center provides workforce education, conducts trainings, produces the Washington State Workplace Rights manual and teaches continuing education classes. New staff will extend its research capacity, increase the number of classes and worker trainings, and develop an online associate degree in workforce and labor studies.
  • Enhance student consumer protections for students pursuing degrees from for-profit colleges through support for a program associate at the Washington Student Achievement Council. This staff member will help improve financial oversight, monitor enrollments and completions, and conduct additional site visits. Funding increase is offset by a corresponding change to fees charged to the institutions.

Health Care Authority

  • Behavioral health integration. Transfer community behavioral health and substance use disorder programs from DSHS to HCA, and the behavioral health licensing and certification programs from DSHS to the Department of Health. This will enable the state to fully integrate physical and behavioral health by 2020, as required by statute. By paying for physical and behavioral health care together, the state will encourage providers to clinically integrate care, which will promote more preventive care services and better patient outcomes.

DSHS CA (DCYF)

  • Increase behavioral rehabilitative services rates by $750 per child per month. The rate increase is effective July 2017 for campus facility-based providers and October 2017 for all remaining behavioral rehabilitative service providers. Behavioral rehabilitative services are for foster care children who have the highest behavioral needs and require the highest level of structured care.
  • DCYF implementation:  Support successful implementation of the new agency, which was created to improve effectiveness of service delivery and to strengthen the collective impact of the Children’s Administration, the Department of Early Learning and the Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration. The new agency opens its door July 1, 2018, and will face costs to begin operation.

Department of Corrections

  • Work release: maximize capacity. Fund 62 beds at work release facilities by maximizing current space. This will alleviate the need to hold more individuals in more-expensive correctional facilities. The Washington State Institute for Public Policy has found that the work release program generates a positive net return on investment of $5,986 per work release participant.
  • Graduated reentry. Expand partial confinement options beyond traditional work release facilities for eligible individuals. Due to limited bed space at these facilities, not all individuals eligible for work releases are able to be placed in one. Options may include supported recovery facilities, veteran care facilities or other forms of supportive housing.
  • Concurrent consecutive sentences. Reduce the offender caseload in community supervision through sentencing changes that require terms of supervision be served concurrently unless the court expressly orders the terms to be served consecutively. This change simplifies supervision and will allow the department to more accurately track adherence with conditions and ensure treatment for the offender is delivered at the most appropriate time.
  • Eliminate drug grid sunset. Make the 2013 sentencing grid modifications, set to sunset in 2018, permanent for any offender who commits a seriousness level 1 drug offense and has three to five prior felony convictions. Seriousness level 1 drug offenses include possession of a forged prescription and unlawful use of a building for drug purposes. Making these changes permanent will save taxpayer money.

Labor and Industries

  • Crime Victims Program. Continue funding for the Crime Victims Compensation Program. As a result of 2017 legislation, which increased reimbursement to providers, and due to declining federal funds, program funding is projected to run out in 2018.

Natural resources

  • The governor proposes new spending for oil spill prevention, wildfire suppression, wildfire protection and response, wildfire recovery, among other adjustments.

Other state agency programs

  • The governor proposes additional spending: to retain 15.5 emergency management staff who coordinate response during state emergencies to ensure that help is provided in a timely and effective manner; in Commerce, a families in crisis study, affordable housing navigator, more; significant information technology investments that range from system development and critical system replacements, to security and software investments that make the state network more impervious to cyber threats.

And more in the Capital-Construction Budget:

  • Department of Commerce Mental health community capacity. Expand community placement for individuals in crisis and those needing long-term mental health treatment. Creates six crisis diversion or stabilization facilities, two drug and alcohol detox facilities, two enhanced service facilities and other placements for hard-to-serve patients. ($65.6 million bonds)
  • Department of Social and Health Services. Additional forensic wards at Western State Hospital to construct two new 30-bed treatment units adjacent to the Center for Forensic Services to address growing demand for competency evaluation and competency restoration services. ($26.9 million bonds)
  • Department of Social and Health Services. Improvements at Western State Hospital to consolidate and make improvements to the Western State Hospital campus to better treat patients. Preserves facilities, designs treatment and recovery space, and enhances campus safety and security. ($13.3 million bonds)
  • Department of Social and Health Services. Child Study and Treatment Center: Children’s Long-term Inpatient Program capacity. Expand the Child Study and Treatment Center for children 5- to 18-years-old who are severely mentally ill. Current capacity is 47 beds, and this adds 18 beds. ($12.9 million bonds)
  • Department of Social and Health Services. Improvements at Eastern State Hospital. Repair and remodel facilities for patient safety and other essential needs. ($5.4 million bonds)

Housing and homelessness

  • Department of Commerce, Department of Ecology: Housing stock and buildable lands. Provide loans and grants for 1) building affordable housing projects; 2) studying how to overcome barriers to constructing innovative and high-quality low-income housing projects that are significantly less expensive to build than traditional housing; 3) cleaning up brownfield sites for affordable housing development; and 4) preserving approximately 284 homes through major building improvements and system replacements. These investments will serve a broad spectrum of vulnerable populations, including homeless people with chronic mental illness and individuals who are no longer receiving active treatment at a state psychiatric hospital; homeless families and individuals; farmworkers; seniors; and individuals with special needs. ($113.2 million bonds; $10.0 million Washington Housing Trust Account)

Energy

  • Department of Commerce: Clean energy. Award grants that develop, demonstrate and deploy technologies that save energy and reduce energy costs, cut harmful air emissions or increase energy independence for the state. Grants can also be used to modernize the electricity grid through projects that advance clean and renewable energy technologies. ($40.6 million bonds; $5.5 million Energy Efficiency Account)
  • Department of Commerce: Weatherization. Assist low-income households in all 39 counties in rehabilitating homes and improving home energy use. The program allows the state to maximize utility partnerships that offer payment arrangements and funding. ($21.0 million bonds)
  • Department of Commerce: Energy efficiency and solar grants. Award grants to state agencies and local governments for projects that improve the energy efficiency of public facilities and street lighting, and install solar systems to reduce energy demand and costs. ($5.5 million bonds; $5.5 million Energy Efficiency Account)

Department of Health

  • Public Health Laboratory. Add new wings to the State Public Health Laboratories in Shoreline to accommodate the requirement that it conduct 17 new health screening tests. As a regional resource, the lab screens for new diseases in Washington, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Alaska.

Preservation of state assets

  • Department of Social and Health Services, Department of Enterprise Services, Department of Corrections, other agencies. Various projects: Preserve state-owned facilities and protect the health and safety of staff, clients and visitors. ($243.4 million bonds; $169.0 million other funds)

Toxics and hazardous waste

  • Department of Ecology, Washington Pollution Liability Insurance Agency: Toxic cleanup. Award grants to local governments to clean up toxics sites and underground storage tanks to protect public and environmental health. The grants create jobs and promote economic activity by redeveloping contaminated sites. A total of $27.7 million restores the 2016 supplemental budget reduction and keeps these important toxics cleanup projects moving forward. ($54.2 million bonds; $8.5 million Model Toxics Control Accounts; $28.8 Cleanup Settlement Account; $12.7 million PLIA Underground Storage Tank Revolving Account)
  • Department of Ecology: Hazardous waste reduction/coordinated prevention grants. Award grants to local governments for solid and hazardous waste plans for waste reduction and recycling programs, household hazardous waste collection and regulatory oversight. ($10.0 million bonds)

Stormwater

  • Department of Ecology Water supply, stormwater, flood protection and Southern Resident killer whale recovery projects. Award grants to tribes, local governments, state agencies and nongovernmental organizations for projects that restore natural conditions in floodplains; construct flood protection and stormwater systems that prevent pollutants from entering areas where Southern Resident killer whales are regularly present; and increase water supply to basins. A total of $70.1 million restores the 2016 supplemental reduction and continues these important projects. ($292.1 million bonds; $10.0 million other funds)
  • Catastrophic flood relief – $60.0 million. Columbia River water supply development program – $33.8 million

Recreation

  • Recreation and Conservation Funding Board: Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program. Support habitat conservation, outdoor recreation, riparian protection, farmland preservation and trails. Includes grants to local governments and nonprofit organizations to construct or renovate outdoor facilities. ($80.0 million bonds)

State Parks and Recreation Commission

  • Preserve assets. Build or improve restrooms, utilities and other park amenities to provide a better experience for state parks visitors. ($50.3 million bonds; $7.3 million other funds)
  • Department of Commerce, Recreation and Conservation Funding Board: Youth recreation programs. Build or renovate indoor and outdoor recreational facilities for youth. ($11.0 million bonds)

We’ll be scrutinizing the supplemental budget for more important details. See for yourself:

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