Inslee: Vetoes will save $445 million over next three years

OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee said he vetoed 147 separate budget items last week as the COVID-19 virus and response to the outbreak put the state’s economy on hold.

“We know the COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous health repercussions for Washingtonians,” Inslee asserted. “It is also having a major impact on our economy and will have a major impact on the revenues in the state of Washington in the months to come.”

Amid expectations that state government revenue would fall “sharply” as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, Inslee said he asked his staff to “scrub” the supplemental budget for new expenditures to see where savings could be obtained.

He said the vetoes he made will save $445 million over the next three years and called the vetoes a “substantial step to right our fiscal ship.”

The governor said he conferred with leaders from the House of Representatives and the Senate about the urgent need to cut non-essential budget expenditure to make way for an expected revenue decline.

Inslee said he expects that a lot of people will be disappointed in his decision to veto the newly passed bills as some lawmakers and stakeholders have spent years working on them. Inslee noted two veto decisions as difficult, a bill that would have provided around $100 million to improve student counselor resources and a $50 million fund to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Other bills that he vetoed include: House Bill 2722, which would have required that beverage manufacturers use containers with a minimum amount of recycled material; House Bill 2797, which would have allowed cities and counties to use a sales and use tax for affordable housing projects; and Senate Bill 6088, which would have established a drug affordability board to help maintain affordable prescription drugs.

The governor also issued partial vetoes on a handful provisions in bills that included new expenditures, including a section in House Bill 2645, which established a solar panel module recycling and reuse program and a provision in House Bill 2619, which would have provided higher rates of subsidies to promote access to early learning programs.

“Under normal circumstances I would not veto bills that are good policy and smart investments over time,” Inslee said. “But, simply put, these are not normal times.”

Inslee said no infrastructure projects in the capital budget were vetoed, as he wants Washingtonians to go back to work on these projects as soon as he ends the “stay home, stay healthy” order.

Inslee said these measures will help protect the state’s roughly $3 billion in emergency reserve funds.