State lawmakers reach accord on $4 billion in cuts

OLYMPIA — Democratic leaders in the state House and Senate have reached agreement on deep cuts in funding for public schools, higher education, health care and other state services totaling nearly $4 billion.

The agreement was announced Wednesday evening, but details were not released.

Budget negotiators did not want to discuss how deeply they cut specific programs until the information was presented to their caucuses in the House and Senate today.

Lawmakers have until Sunday to debate and vote on the agreement if they hope to adjourn this year's legislative session on time.

"There are a lot of cuts that we made that rip the hearts out of all of us having to make them," said Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Medina, vice chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Rep. Kelli Linville, chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said, "We've been trying to write a budget we can live with regardless of anything else that happens. That's what I think we did."

Rep. Eric Pettigrew, chairman of the House Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee, has introduced a measure that would ask voters to increase the state sales tax by three-tenths of a penny for three years to help backfill cuts to health care.

His committee approved House Bill 2377 on Tuesday morning. However, it's not clear yet if it will get a floor vote. Democratic leaders in the House are figuring out if there are enough votes in their caucus to send the measure to the ballot, and have been mulling poll data to gauge its support among voters.

The Senate seems to be in a wait-and-see mode, letting the House take the lead on the issue.

Both the Senate and House, in their proposed budgets, called for cuts in payments for hospital and nursing-home care, and a sharp reduction in the number of people enrolled in the Basic Health Plan, a state-subsidized insurance program for the working poor.

Talk has died down in the Senate about proposing an income tax targeting people earning more than $250,000. Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, had been promoting the idea earlier in the session.

The budget agreement makes it likely that lawmakers will wrap up business by Sunday, the last scheduled day of the regular session.

On Wednesday, the House approved legislation that would remove the current 7 percent cap on increases in undergraduate tuition at state colleges and universities. The state budget will set a new cap on tuition increases, possibly 14 percent for each of the next two years, to help offset some of the cuts to higher education.

The tuition-cap bill now goes to the Senate.

The House also has passed legislation that suspends initiatives that provide cost-of-living pay raises for teachers and puts millions of dollars each year toward reducing class sizes at public schools.

This has been the most challenging budget in decades for lawmakers to put together. The total budget shortfall between now and 2011 is about $9 billion. Lawmakers are able to bridge more than half of that deficit with about $3 billion in stimulus money and other federal bailouts, cash set aside in the rainy-day fund and budget cuts already adopted.

Counting the federal money, majority Democrats in the House and Senate proposed budgets of roughly $35 billion for the 2009-2011 fiscal years.

Andrew Garber: 360-236-8266 or agarber@seattletimes.com