Senate continues to offer better solutions and ideas to move Washington forward

“We continue to offer better solutions and ideas to move Washington forward. The cutoff for policy bills shows that we’re serious about job growth, funding education as a first priority, and making sure the state lives within its means. We’re making great progress on transportation reforms, student achievement and helping families realize the dream of college for their children.

“We’ve already changed the way things get done in Olympia by moving the state’s revenue forecast up a month earlier and requiring a 4-year balanced budget to add greater accountability for how your tax dollars are spent. The announcement that projected revenue has increased $274 million for the next budget cycle is cause for optimism. It’s a plus for our fragile economy and quiets the drumbeat of those who say we must raise taxes on hard working families to feed bigger bureaucracies.”

What’s alive in the Senate? Below are key bills by committee. This represents the first time in over a decade we have the opportunity to pass serious job creation, transportation reforms and government accountability measures. The fiscal cutoff is Friday, Feb. 27 for bills with budget impacts and in Transportation and Ways& Means.

Accountability and Reform:

• SB 5737 (Miloscia)
  • Miloscia’s omnibus Performance Management Act. It sets up a new executive office with oversight of agency Lean management plans and efforts to implement Baldrige quality assessments. It also directs how cost savings from properly implemented performance management should be allocated.
• SB 5206 (Becker)
  • Agencies found to be out of compliance after financial or legal audits must submit remediation plans. If follow-up reveals they have not complied with remediation, they must bid the agency function out for contract.

Agriculture, Water & Rural Economic Development:

• 5129 (Pearson)
• Concerning overriding considerations of the public interest in management of the waters of the state

• 5442 (Warnick)
  • Concerning eligibility criteria for the community economic revitalization board programs
• 5733 (Warnick)
  • Concerning livestock transaction reporting

Commerce and Labor:

• SB 5515 (Braun)
  • Excluding retirement as a collective bargaining negotiating issue for home care individual providers. Gov. Inslee has negotiated retirement for individual providers for the first time among “partial public” employees.
• SB 5671 (Baumgartner)
  • “Harris v. Quinn fix” – Brings state statutes governing “partial public employees” into conformity with the U.S. Supreme Court case. Requires the state to deduct union dues only when these workers have voluntarily given their written consent.  Helps shield the state from liability.
• SB 5509 (Braun)
  • “Workers Compensation Occupational Disease” – Requires that an occupational disease arise out of and in the course of employment. Statute of limitations is also changed from two years to one year (except for hearing loss which remains two years)
• SB 5332 (Braun)
  • “Union Waivers” – Applies local ordinances equally to union and non-union firms. The majority of unions with workers in Seattle waive sick and safe leave requirements.  Yet, they are major financial backers of such policies.
• SB 5514 (Braun)
  • “Good Faith Defense” – Creating a good faith defense for employers within the Minimum Wage Act. Employers are not liable and cannot be assessed a penalty for wage/overtime violations if they can establish they relied in good faith on L&I’s written guidance.
• SSB 5329
  • “Open Meetings” – Requiring public employee collective bargaining sessions to be open meetings to the public.
• SB 5510 (Braun)
  • “Workers Compensation Wage Simplification” – Changes time-loss from a sliding scale to flat rate w/monthly minimum and clarifies that time-loss payments are calculated using the 66.67% formula of wages earned over the past 12 months.
• SB 5513 (Braun)
  • “Worker Recovery Act” – Removes age restrictions for eligibility to voluntarily enter into a structured settlement and puts into statute that “best interest of the worker” is not a requirement for represented workers (i.e. Zimmerman fix)

Early Learning & K-12 Education:

• SSB 5452 (Litzow)
  • Improving quality in the early care and education system. Creates a high quality early learning system.
• SSB 5744 (Litzow)
  • Regarding school employee workforce reductions and assignments. Ends forced placements by requiring a teacher and a principal to agree before a teacher is assigned to work in a specific school. Creates a performance-based framework governing reductions in force (RIF) due to declines in enrollment or revenue losses.
• SSB 5748 (Litzow)
  • Clarifying the teacher and principal evaluation process with the intent of strengthening process(Waiver bill.)For teachers who teach reading, language arts, or mathematics in a grade in which the federally mandated statewide student assessments are administered, student results from the relevant statewide assessment must be used as one of the multiple measures of student growth in teacher performance evaluations.

Energy Environment and Telecommunications:

• SB 5056 (Ericksen)
  • Concerning the use of chemical action plans
• SB 5057 ( Ericksen)
  • Concerning the safe transport of hazardous materials – oil train safety
• SB 5735 (Ericksen)
  • Providing incentives for carbon reduction investments (New Energy Plan)

Financial Institutions and Insurance:

• SB 5974 (Benton)
  • Requires the Insurance commissioner to review the barriers to offering supplemental coverage options to veterans and their dependents.
• SB 5899 (Liias)
  • Establishes the small consumer installment loan act. Addresses check cashers and sellers and small consumer installment loans.

Government Operations & State Security:

• SB 5181 (Pearson)
  • Authorizes mobilization & reimbursement of fire department resources to respond to wildfires, landslides, earthquakes floods, and other disasters (that this was not passed previously became a topic after Oso)
• SB 5777 (Becker)
  • Amends the State Employee Whistleblower Protection Act to include improper ex parte communication and other changes (related to this summer’s OIC judge investigation)
• SB 5978 (Roach)
  • Sets the Presidential Primary as the 2^nd Tuesday in March and sets procedures for the Secretary of State’s proposal.

Health Care:

• SB 5052 (Rivers), passed out of Senate 36 to 11, Feb. 13
  • Creates the Cannabis Patient Protection Act.

• SB 5175 (Becker)
  • Recognizes the application of telemedicine as a reimbursable service by which an individual receives medical services from a health care provider without in-person contact with the provider. Reduces the compliance requirements on hospitals when granting privileges or associations to telemedicine physicians.
• SB 5142 (Becker)
  • Prohibits, except for the small business health options program, the state health benefit exchange from aggregating or delegating the aggregation of funds that comprise the premium for an enrollee. Requires the state health benefit exchange to: (1) Capture detailed enrollment and demographic data for enrollment processed for qualified health plans and Medicaid plans and post monthly enrollment reports to the web page; (2) Ensure the qualified health plans report data back to the exchange on enrollees that may enter a grace period; and (3) Jointly with the office of the insurance commissioner and the state health care authority, monitor the process of moving the payment function out of the exchange.
• SB 5084 (Becker)
  • Modifies statewide all-payer health care claims database provisions relating to improving health care quality and cost transparency by changing certain definitions regarding data, reporting and pricing of products, responsibility of the office and lead organization, and parameters for release of information.
• SB 5477 (Dammeier)
  • Requires child-resistant packaging for substances intended for use in a vapor product that is sold at retail in this state.

Higher Education:

• SB 5954 (Braun)
  • Reduces tuition at public higher ed. Institutions based on average state wage (14% premiere university ;10% regional university ;6% community colleges)
• SB 5487 (Baumgartner)
  • Authorizes Medical & Forestry programs at Washington State University
• SB 5349  (Bailey)
  • Requires Higher Ed institutions to provide student with financial literacy seminars

Human Services, Mental Health & Housing:

• SB 5269 (O’Ban)
  • Allows a family member to petition the court for review when a designated mental health professional (DMHP) declines to detain a mentally ill person for evaluation and treatment.
• SB 5404 (O’Ban)
  • Creates an office of homeless youth programs with the goals of providing stable housing, education and employment opportunities, permanent connections, and social and emotional well-being for homeless youths.
• SB 5564 (O’Ban)
  • Amends the Youth Opportunities Act to better address low-income youth.  Refocuses on efforts to compensate victims by eliminating most non-restitution legal financial obligations (LFOs), giving judges discretion to consider the youth’s ability to pay when ordering restitution, allowing judges to order community service in lieu of paying restitution, and affording youth the opportunity to get their record sealed after completing their restitution payments or community service.
• SB 5644 (O’Ban)
  • Requires the DMHP to temporarily detain an individual in boarding status if an appropriate treatment bed cannot be found in time.  Also modifies hour time limits for DMHP to complete ITA evaluation, clarifies that regional support networks are responsible for providing adequate networks of evaluation and treatment beds, grants DSHS statutory authority to issue single bed certifications in certain circumstances, and disallows court from dismissing ITA petition on technical violations (i.e. when time limit has expired).

Law& Justice:

• SB 5067 (Padden)
  • Addresses the unreliability of accomplice and criminal informant evidence and testimony to ensure that the jury is fully informed when an accomplice or informant testifies.
• SB 5106 (O’Ban)
  • Creates a civil cause of action for the remote unauthorized access of webcams and provides remedies that more fully compensate victims.
• 6019 (Padden)
  • Concerning greater independence of state Administrative Law Judges. Removes reviews of rulings from agency heads and removes adverse rulings as part of employee evaluations. Any challenge to a ruling will be taken to county superior court.
• 5503 (Padden)
  • Increases the sanctions for habitual property offenders to provide more effective deterrents to recidivism. Enhances the courts’ discretion to more appropriately sentence habitual property offenders with significant histories of burglary and theft
• 5766 (Roach)
  • Changes the duties of monitoring agencies that provide home detention programs using electronic monitoring.
• 8205 (Padden)
  • Proposes an amendment to the state Constitution so that justices of the Supreme Court are elected by qualified electors of a Supreme Court judicial district.

Natural Resources and Parks:

• SB 5405 (Pearson)
  • Establishes a legislative task force to study the risks, options, and benefits of transferring federal lands in Washington to the state.  Contains requirements for the selection of the task force and reporting to the legislature.
• SB 5769 (Schoesler)
  • Allows a county weed control board to place a lien on lands owned by the state to cover the costs of controlling noxious weeds on state land.
• SB 5960 (Dansel)
  • Requires WDFW to update the 2011 wolf conservation and management plan to ensure the establishment of a self-sustaining population of gray wolves while also ensuring social tolerance of wolf recovery.

Trade& Economic Development

• SB 5111 (Brown)
  • CPR Act – Community Prosperity & Revitalization. Provides a mechanism for local governments and state and federal agencies to perform a coordinated and comprehensive review of projects of statewide significance and encourages their expeditious completion.
• SB 5756 (Braun)
  • Provides a preferential business and occupation tax rate, business and occupation tax credit, and sales and use tax deferral for the manufacturing of rotorcraft, including the components used in the manufacturing process.
• SB 5923 (Brown)
  • Addresses the increase of single-family residential construction. Requires the department of commerce to study and develop a report on the payment and collection of impact fees from school districts, county governments, and city governments associated with single-family residential construction building permits. Requires counties, cities, and towns collecting impact fees to adopt a permanent system for the collection of impact fees from applicant’s residential building permits.

Transportation:

Eight Reform Bills:

• SB 5990 (King)
  • Requires that sales and use tax on transportation projects be transferred to the Connecting Washington Account (within the Motor Vehicle Fund). Becomes effective on only new-law revenue projects upon becoming a law. Becomes fully effective on all other transportation projects starting with the 2019-2021 biennium.

• SB 5991(King)
  • Designates 20% starting in the 2015-2017 biennium from the ELSA account for WSDOT storm water legacy projects and culvert projects.
• SB 5992 (King)
  • Requires WSF to use a design-build, fixed price contract. Design and Coastguard approval must be complete before construction begins. WSF must hire an Independent Owners Representative to manage ferry contract(s). Initial bids will have a Build in WA requirement, but if they are all above 5% of the engineer’s estimate, the contract will be rebid and out-of-state companies may bid. The project budget may not contain more than 5% of the fixed price contract as contingency.
•  SB 5993 (King)
  • Changes WSDOT apprenticeship requirements from 15% to 13%, and makes the apprenticeship provision apply only to projects costing $3 million or more. Percentage decrease in apprenticeship requirements sunsets in ten years (2015-2025). Makes prevailing wage surveys able to be submitted electronically. Excludes the payment of prevailing wages to off-site workers involved in the manufacture or fabrication of nonstandard items used or incorporated into the project on new law transportation projects. Restore funding for helmets to hardhats program.
• SB 5994 (King)
  • Limits the use of a local hearing officer to only those appeals of critical area permits where WSDOT consents – otherwise, appeal goes to the superior court. Declares that WSDOT is not required to obtain various local zoning permits for construction staging areas related to the construction of state highways. Provides that only WSDOT or another permittee may appeal building permits issued by cities, towns, or counties for temporary buildings supporting highway construction. “To the greatest extent practicable” permits must be issued to WSDOT within 90 days of filing the permit application. Exempts highway maintenance and certain minor highway improvements from the Shorelines Management Act. Exempts projects from the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) if they are categorically excluded under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
• SB 5995 (King)
  • Adds “congestion relief and improved freight mobility” to the existing Mobility Goal.
• SB 5996 (King)
  • Addressing the permitting of certain transportation projects (ESHB 1978). Creates a seven-step required permitting process for all transportation projects. undertaken by WSDOT that require the preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act. Requires the Dept. of Ecology to undertake rule-making and convene a work group regarding local permitting of transportation projects under the Shoreline Management Act. Directs WSDOT to continue using the multiagency permit program and places various requirements upon the staff and the program. Requires WSDOT environmental staff to develop all environmental documentation and oversee project work in order to ensure compliance. Removed sections 10 and 13 in previous version to eliminate expert review panel for 520 and AWV project and right-sizing provisions.
• SB 5997 (King)
  • Encourages WSDOT to use Design Build on projects over $10 million. Creates Expert Review Panel to include two outside experts, WSDOT, AGC, and ACEC to make recommendations for improvement of Design Build Project delivery.

• SB 5481 (Hill) Addresses numerous customer complaints about state tolling system

• Transportation Revenue:
  • SB 5987 (King)
    • Concerning transportation revenue.
  • SB 5988 (King)
    • Concerning additive transportation funding and appropriation
  • SB 5989 (King)
    • Authorize bonds for transportation funding.

Ways& Means

• SB 5944 (Hill) SMART Act Requires an expiration date for new statutory state spending of no more than ten years. Requires new state spending program to include a state spending performance statement.
• HB 1105 (Hunter) Supplemental Budget, signed by governor Feb. 19, 2015
  • Supplemental changes are made to the 2013-15 Biennial Operating Budget relating to funding for fires and disasters, children and family services, mental health services, and the judgment against the state in Rekhter v. Washington Department of Social and Health Services. State Near General Fund plus Opportunity Pathways appropriations for the 2013-15 biennium are increased by $66.2 million. In addition, $77.2 million is appropriated from the Budget Stabilization Account (BSA) for fires and other disasters, including mobilization, response, and recovery. The total budget is increased by $217.9 million. The Economic and Revenue Forecast Council must produce a revenue forecast in February 2015 instead of March 2015.
• SB 5910 (Hill) – in the Supplemental Budget
  • Requires the economic and revenue forecast supervisor to submit a quarterly revenue forecast by February 20th during a short session and a long session. First early forecast completed.