Frockt denounces State Senate budget

Sen. David Frockt, D-46

Democratic State Sen. David Frockt, who represents Lake Forest Park and the rest of the 46th Legislative District, has denounced the Senate's budget passed last week.

Frockt is Senate minority floor leader and a member of the Senate Health Care, Higher Education and Rules committees

A coalition of 23 Republicans and two conservative Democrats controls the Senate. Several minority Democrats joined the majority coalition in passing the budget.

Frockt said that the budget makes serious cuts to social services and wrongly depends on transfering money from other funds without making the progress toward full financial support for basic education as required by the State Supreme Court’s recent McCleary decision.

Frockt issued the following statement Friday:

“I was extremely disappointed by the budget that was passed today on the floor of the Senate. The budget does not take sufficient steps towards our constitutional and moral obligation to educate our children and it makes serious cuts to the social safety net that protects our most vulnerable friends and neighbors. 

“When Gov. Jay Inslee released his budget proposal on March 28, I was encouraged to see a proposal which took a serious step towards fulfilling our McCleary obligations while protecting our social safety net. In comparison, the Senate Republican budget does not move us towards sustainably fulfilling our $4.5 billion McCleary obligation and it cuts crucial services for the poor and the disabled. 

"The governor’s budget funds education reforms that we know work like class size reduction for grades K-3 and fully funding all-day kindergarten for all high-poverty schools; the Senate Republican budget doesn’t fund class size reduction at all, only makes small increases in all-day kindergarten funding and would cut child care and early learning. 

“The budget relies on booking $131 million in unspecified accounting “efficiencies.” Including $16 million from the Department of Corrections. Worse still, it unconstitutionally diverts almost $400 million constitutionally protected school construction funds to our McCleary obligation rather than being honest about what our educational needs are in the coming years. It’s not only unconstitutional; it’s terrible policy because it puts a significant part of our school construction needs unnecessarily on the state’s credit card. 

“We didn’t need to rely on unsustainable budgeting; we could have followed the lead of Gov. Inslee’s proposal and closed unproductive tax loopholes and maintained existing revenue sources. I was dismayed by the Republican majority’s unwillingness in this budget to close tax loopholes that don’t create jobs and are giveaways to big corporations that are already highly profitable. 

“For example, there’s a tax loophole on extracted fuel that benefits five big oil refineries in the state. Closing it would raise $40 million, enough money to open the State Need Grant up to almost 5,000 additional students in our higher education system. Our governor supports closing that loophole, editorial boards across the state support closing that loophole, but the Senate Republican majority will not support closing this loophole. We can and should do better than this.”