Spring has sprung and the session is moving along. Most of the policy committees are pretty much done hearing bills from the opposite house and some have finished with executive action on bills as well. The focus is quickly shifting almost entirely to the fiscal committees where many bills are being sent, and they only have until April 4th to get out. While that date may seem like a ways away, it will be here before we know it. From now until then there will be a lot of action taken on the budgets.
So, what’s happening with the budgets?! Well, the Senate budget came out yesterday, March 23rd and will be heard in Ways and Means today. The plan is to exec it out of Ways and Means on Monday and then off the Senate floor on Wed. Plans can change but that is the latest news we have heard.
Regarding the House budget, it will be released and heard on Monday, March 27th. The Appropriations committee will exec it out a couple (few?) days later and then vote it out of the House after that. Once both budgets have passed, negotiations will fully get underway between the House and Senate. And don’t forget about the Governor! He has the final say about the budget and will also get involved (at some point) with the discussions. These discussions are done behind closed doors, and it is a time of speculation and anxious pacing by those of us on the other side of the doors!
A bit more on the subject of budgets….. The Senate capital budget was heard on Monday (3/20) and exec’d in Ways and Means on the 22nd. The House capital budget will be released at the same time as the House operating budget on Monday, March 27th. It will be heard on the 28th. There is also a separate transportation budget but we’ll leave that to other organizations to cover!
We would be remiss if we also didn’t mention that while everything is going on with bills and budget hearings, the House and Senate are spending time on the floor passing bills from the opposite chamber that have already made their way through the process! A lot more Rules and floor action will take place after fiscal cut-off on April 4th but the more they can do now, the more time they have between the 4th and 12th (opposite house cut-off) to do bills that aren’t as far along!
If you are interested in reading the budgets they are posted after release on fiscal.wa.gov. And of course, bills, committee schedules and much more can be found on leg.wa.gov. We will continue to include some amendment information on the tracker but complete info about bills can be found on leg.wa.gov.
That’s it for now! Have a good week.
Here is the bill tracker for week 11: P4C week eleven bill tracker 2023.
