WA state 2yr budget highlights … $43.7 bil budget averts govt shutdown


New tax revenue

  • $1.6 billion from an increase in the state property tax earmarked for education.

• $431.8 million from expansion of online sales-tax collections.

• $15.6 million from eliminating tax breaks on bottled water and extracted fuels.

New spending

• $1.8 billion added to public schools.

• $618 million for state-worker pay raises.

• $102 million to improve Washington’s troubled mental-health system.

• $75 million added to higher education.

• $25 million to expand early-childhood education.

• $6.3 million to create a new state Department of Children, Youth and Families.

• $4.6 million to fund a clean-air program that caps carbon emissions from a handful of businesses.

• $3.2 million to the Department of Corrections to hire records staffers and beef up its IT systems in the wake of a long-running mistaken release of prisoners.

resource: seattletimes.com