OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington state legislators passed 267 new state laws in the most recent legislative session.

~ Healthcare: expanded practices for nurses

HB 2340 adds a new limit to the public information about nursing assistants disclosed by the Board of Nursing. If a nursing assistant dealing with substance abuse issues was disciplined by the Board of Nursing but undergoes counseling, the board is not permitted to disclose its disciplinary action on its public website.

While HB 2339 took effect June 11, the law includes a clause that practicing nurse anesthetists who did not receive their prescribing authority before July 1 can still administer certain drugs to patients, adding a legal exception that protects nurses from being suddenly cut off from doing their jobs.

Tax Money Spent: On Childcare, Public Health Beginning in 2027, HB 2442 authorizes counties and cities to adopt a 0.01% local sales tax to fund services for children and families, including perinatal support, after-school programs, workforce development and transportation for facilities receiving services.

Housing House Bill 2442, which takes effect Wednesday, gives cities and counties greater fiscal flexibility in how they use local tax revenues to support housing, childcare and public health and other needs.

For instance, “Communities can now use affordable housing sales tax revenue for rental assistance, rehab work on existing units and ongoing operations and maintenance,” Southwest Washington Accountable Community of Health said on its website.

~ Speed Zone Camera Fees

While not a state law, drivers in Washington should be aware that first-time tickets for speeding in road work zones will be going up in price.

Fines for first-time traffic infraction offenders who speed through road work areas will go up to $125 starting July 1, as part of WSDOT’s Work Zone Speed Camera Program. Any and all subsequent speeding incidents will result in a $248 fine.

According to WSDOT, the cameras have been used over 900 times at about 50 job sites since the program began April 16, 2025, and about 85,000 work zone speed camera infractions have been issued statewide. 77,000 of those were first-time infractions.

~ Stabilized ambulance fees

Ambulance companies will see less fluctuation in the fees they pay to the state’s treasury, creating a more accurate way of tracking funds in the pool.

In Washington, ambulance companies pay fees into a state treasury called the Ambulance Transport Fund. The fund was established to account for the gap between the cost of providing emergency medical care and state Medicaid reimbursement rates. Now, when those ambulance providers treat a patient, federal Medicaid dollars can be activated to cover the cost of providers’ services, in addition to the money the companies paid into the state fund.

Starting July 1, HB 2531 will freeze the fee rate that ambulance companies pay to the state Ambulance Transport Fund treasury to the rate they paid in July 2025, and will make sure that any funds they are paid back through Medicaid reflect what’s actually available in the fund.

~ PTSD counseling

A new pilot program will provide post-traumatic stress disorder counseling for employees filing worker’s compensation cases. The Department of Labor and Industries program created by SHB 2405 will provide a determined number of counseling sessions before and after claims are closed. 

Source: king5.com, olympian.com, Molly Hetherwick,