News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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Following last week’s rapid-fire vote on a bill to exempt the Legislature from state public records laws, lawmakers are going into damage control with public backlash mounting. The bill, SB 6617, explicitly exempts lawmakers from the state’s Public Records Act, and applies immediately and retroactively — meaning that existing records going back to statehood would be off limits to disclosure requests. The legislation allows disclosure of lawmakers’ calendars and communications with registered lobbyists, but only documents created after July 1,...
State lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are pushing a bill devised in secret, in the final days of the session, to exempt themselves from public records requests. The move comes on the heels of a court ruling that the Legislature is required to adhere to the state’s open government laws. The bill, SB 6617, would directly amend the state’s Public Records Act to explicitly exempt the state Legislature—this includes its employees, agencies, and members—from the law’s disclosure requirements retroactively and starting immediately. The legis... Full story
Despite the passage of last year’s bipartisan agreement to fully fund K-12 public education with a property tax hike, the state Legislature is still wrestling over the issue as school leaders across the state say the changes will hurt their districts, including at Grand Coulee Dam. In November, the state Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature needs to ramp up funding for teacher and other school staff salaries to meet its imposed September 2018 deadline, despite the billions that have already been allocated to public education. However, s...
Despite the passage of last year’s bipartisan agreement to fully fund K-12 public education with a property tax hike, the state Legislature is still wrestling over the issue as school leaders across the state say the changes will hurt their districts, including at Grand Coulee Dam. In November, the state Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature needs to ramp up funding for teacher and other school staff salaries to meet its imposed September 2018 deadline, despite the billions that have already been allocated to public education. However, s... Full story
Governor Jay Inslee rolled out his most recent proposal to tax carbon emissions across the state of Washington. The proposal he unveiled on Tuesday is sweeping: emissions generated by power plants and transportation fuels — with the exception of airplane jet fuel — would be taxed at $20 per ton, starting July 1, 2019. With annual increases of roughly 3 percent plus inflation, the governor’s office estimates that the proposal would generate roughly $3.3 billion over the next four years. The revenues from the tax would be channeled into a varie...
OLYMPIA, Wash. — While Democrats in the state Legislature have supported enacting a capital gains tax to fund public education in the past, they aren’t itching to pass one this legislative session now that they control both the statehouse and the governorship. At a Thursday morning news conference, Senate Majority Leader Sharon Nelson, D–Maury Island, said that while “everything will be on the table” she doesn’t see much momentum behind passing a capital gains tax assessed on profits derived from the sale of property or other assets this...