OLYMPIA… The budget leaders for the state’s Senate Republicans offered this assessment of the supplemental 2025-27 operating budget from majority Democrats, which will have a public hearing this afternoon before the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
The proposal would push state spending above the $80 billion mark for the first time and represent an 11.3% spending increase from the previous biennium. Yet it would drop the share of the budget invested in K-12 to 42.2%, the lowest in more than a dozen years, and reduce the budget share for higher education to a new low of 7.6%, while relying on another $114 million in higher taxes.
Sen. Chris Gildon and Sen. Nikki Torres cited two budget items as steps in the right direction. One would save an estimated $800 million through a sensible reform to Washington’s taxpayer-funded Working Connections Child Care subsidy program; the second would belatedly begin to address what lawmakers know as “tort liability” – the growing cost of lawsuits and judgments lost by the state due to agency-level failures. Even then, however, the budget proposal fails to treat the tort-liability concern as the ongoing concern it has become.
The hearing on the operating-budget proposal, Senate Bill 5998, will begin at 4 p.m.
From Sen. Gildon, R-Puyallup and budget leader:
“This budget is a house of cards. It balances the books by draining nearly half of our Rainy Day Fund, shifting capital dollars into operating expenses, and pulling money from parks. That’s not fiscal responsibility — it’s short-term patchwork that leaves taxpayers exposed.”
“This increases spending growth for the budget cycle to 11.3% and new policy costs to $1.7 billion — and has overall spending growing at more than twice the pace of family budgets across our state. The majority keeps talking about affordability, yet nothing in this plan meaningfully reduces the cost of living for hardworking Washingtonians.
“It says a lot that the largest cost increase in this proposal is driven not by education or health care, but by the harm to Washington residents caused by agency mismanagement. Had the executive branch been more serious about the state’s liability before now, that cost might have been avoided.
“I don’t doubt that crafting this budget was difficult, but this is the second shortfall in two years — both caused by overspending. Doubling down on the same mistake won’t fix it. Olympia can’t keep lurching from one deficit to the next while families and employers foot the bill. It’s simply not sustainable.”
From Sen. Torres, R-Pasco and assistant budget leader:
“This budget is more proof that Olympia has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. While it’s encouraging to see some attention given to reforms in programs that are failing children, I’m deeply concerned that the largest policy savings are taken from K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. That’s the wrong direction for Washington’s future workforce.
“What makes this even more concerning is where those reductions fall. Proposed cuts to Local Effort Assistance and Transition to Kindergarten hit some of our most vulnerable students the hardest. LEA exists to help property-poor school districts, including districts like mine, ensure their students have opportunities comparable to wealthier areas. Cutting those funds shifts the burden onto rural and higher-poverty communities that already face the greatest challenges. The same is true for Transition to Kindergarten, which helps our youngest learners build a strong academic foundation before they ever enter a classroom full time. Pulling back on these investments would only deepen inequities in our education system at the very moment we should be correcting them.”
“And that’s what makes this so frustrating. We’re told the state needs more revenue, yet this proposal grows government to more than $80 billion — up roughly 110% over the past decade — while median household income has increased about half that rate. That’s not sustainable.
“When people ask Republicans, ‘Where would you make different choices?’ I point to the no-new-taxes budget we proposed in 2025 — one that funded core services without adding billions in new taxes and without taking money away from classrooms. Had that approach been adopted, I question whether we would be facing another shortfall today. It’s time to reset priorities and restore discipline to the budget process.”