Governor wants agencies to look for deeper cuts for next budget cycle
Thursday, June 12, 2025
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The Washington state Capitol on April 18, 2025. (Photo by Jacquelyn Jimenez Romero/Washington State Standard) |
Just weeks after signing a budget that relied on spending cuts and new taxes to balance, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson is telling state agencies to tighten their fiscal belts even more.
The warning from the Democratic governor comes amid an increasingly gloomy budget outlook and underscores that the state’s financial difficulties are not over.
“We will very likely continue to face a challenging state budget environment in the coming year and anticipate increasing caseloads and ongoing uncertainty in the economy and federal funding,” reads a June 4 memo from Ferguson’s budget director to agency leaders and presidents of higher education institutions.
The letter penned by K.D. Chapman-See, director of the Office of Financial Management, precedes departments and colleges submitting funding requests that they hope Ferguson will support heading into next year.
Those submissions are due by Sept. 15. Ferguson will release his proposed spending plans in December and the Legislature will consider them in the 2026 session.
The letter says requests should only be for “critical and emergent costs” that cannot be covered within their existing budgets. It urges them to look for “additional options for efficiencies, reform, administrative savings, or reductions in non-essential services and programs.”
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