By Donna Gordon Blankinship, Editor, JTNews
Jewish organizations and the people they help have survived another legislative session, thanks, in part, to the efforts of community advocates and their army of citizen lobbyists.
“It ended up not as bad as it could have been,” reported Sherry Appleton, lobbyist for the Coalition for a Jewish Voice. Most programs that help children and families, the elderly and the disabled maintained their funding, with some minor cuts.
But state legislators found some controversial, short-term solutions to keep money flowing to government programs, so next year the Legislature could face some or all of the same challenges, again. If the state economy doesn’t improve between now and next January, the state could face another $1 billion deficit for the following fiscal year, according to Appleton.
“Until we have a stable revenue stream, we’re always going to have these highs and lows,” she said.
The long-term goal of both the Coalition for a Jewish Voice and the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle is to stabilize funding for social service programs so the Legislature won’t be forced to debate their demise every year. Of course, CJV and the Jewish Federation take different approaches to stopping the state government’s funding roller-coaster.
CJV has come right out and advocated in favor of a state income tax and business tax reform. “Until people start realizing that you can’t have something for nothing, we’re always going to have these problems. The fact is that government costs money. But it’s better than any other system we have in this world,” Appleton said.
The coalition has already held one tax forum, which Appleton said was well-attended, and they plan to make tax reform a big, long-term goal. She said she has been surprised to hear people start to talk about an income tax directly, including business people. “People are finally starting to talk about income taxes. I think that in the long run that is the only way we are going to reform the system,” she added.
The Jewish Federation, however, is not yet ready to address this issue head-on, although Remy Trupin, Government Affairs director, added, “We’re going to talk about how to pay for services that are important, without necessarily describing an outcome.” He complimented CJV for being willing to “push the envelope.”
“We just have to start to discourse; clearly there’s a problem,” Trupin said, adding that this year the Legislature found a “very short fix” for its revenue problem.
He expected state legislators would find it difficult to talk about raising taxes this year, which will be an election year for most of them. “However, the window is open because of the situation the state is in.”
According to Appleton and Trupin, the following good news came out of the 2002 legislative session:
• The Kline Galland Home escaped an expected $70 million annual cut in state Medicaid reimbursements. Trupin called this outcome “pretty amazing,” adding that the Jewish nursing home will see some small adjustments for inflation.
• General Assistance Unemployable, a “welfare” program for adults who are unable to work mostly because of disabilities such as mental illness, was saved, despite attempts by some legislators to cut this program. This program helps clients of Jewish Family Service and the Seattle Association for the Jewish Disabled.
• Most of the intervention and prevention programs for children were saved. There was a concern late in the session that there wouldn’t be enough money for refugee resettlement but that proposed cut did not survive the budgeting process.
• The Anti-Defamation League-supported bill to combat extremist-group training in the state was approved.
• A bill to allow victims of domestic violence and/or stalking to collect unemployment insurance was approved, after several years of fighting for this legislation. Appleton said this bill makes the workplace safer and helps people start new lives.
• Also approved was a family-care bill that allows people who work for companies with sick leave to use this time off not only for personal illness or to care for sick children, but also to care for sick spouses, grandparents, in-laws and children over 18 who are very ill.
• An anti-bullying bill that requires each school district to set up a program to combat this problem by training both teachers and children was approved.
• A low-cost housing bill passed. It will generate more revenue for low-cost housing and could help fund future group homes run by the Seattle Association for the Jewish Disabled some day.
• A drug sentencing bill that will allow non-violent offenders to get treatment instead of incarceration was approved.
“It was a good session in a lot of ways,” Appleton concluded.