A week ago, Shift highlighted one of the lessons learned from the election, which was that Republicans would not be waiting until next year to engage Democrats on the issue that was most often heard in the most contested legislative races this year – liberal plans for tax increases.
In fact, we reported on how incoming Senate Ways and Means Chairman John Braun fired a shot across Jay Inslee’s bow, by asking Inslee’s budget director to determine whether the expensive pay raises his administration had negotiated with state employees was “feasible financially” under current projected revenue, without slashing social service spending.
Well, better late than never, as today the Seattle Times caught up to the story, putting it on page 1, and detailing the specific damage Inslee is trying to inflict on the budget, to help out his million-dollar campaign donors. From the Times,
“Earlier this fall, Inslee’s administration released the tentative collective-bargaining agreements that his staff negotiated with 38 unions representing 95,000 public-sector workers and contractors. The contracts, which require legislative approval to take effect, generally call for a 6 percent raise for state employees — 2 percent in the 2018 fiscal year, which begins in July 2017, followed by 4 percent in fiscal year 2019. Those new proposed raises would go to about 78,000 workers, while about 17,000 more would get separate, job-specific raises.”
The total raise package – “about $700 million”. And that’s on top of the $400 million in raises that Inslee handed out two years ago to his fellow state employees.
You must admit, over $1 billion in raises is a pretty good return on the $1 million that the public employee unions put into getting Inslee elected back in 2012.
Now, even the Times is aware of a big problem with this excessive pay package – that it was negotiated in secret. In fact, the paper editorialized against that practice in June, writing “negotiations should be more open so the public knows what’s on the table and what trade-offs are being made on both sides. Given the huge influence of unions on state politics, secrecy gives rise to questions about how governors are influenced by political support they receive from unions they’re negotiating with behind closed doors.”
You can rest assured that this battle about the whiff of corruption that exists with such deals will continue to play out in the media and in the legislative chambers over the next few months, though it seems our “green” governor is not ready to engage. According to the Times “(Budget Director David) Schumacher declined an interview request and Inslee’s office declined to comment” for today’s story.
Guess they are waiting for the unions to give them their talking points on what is “feasible financially.”
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