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The legislature raised funds this session for welfare, making food stamps and Medicaid availab to more people and providing a rare 3 percent increase in Temporary Assistance to Needy Famlilies.
Photo by Adam Hyla |
With hard economic times bearing
down on Americans, the Democratic-led Washington Legislature provided more money for assistance, food stamps, housing, and healthcare — even a tax rebate for low-income families — in what advocates for the poor and homeless are calling a banner year in Olympia.
In the short session that ended March 13, lawmakers added $306 million to the state’s previous $33.4 million budget for the 2007-2008 biennium. The extra money is slated to create new programs or expand existing ones in the fiscal year starting July 1, including establishing the new, state-level Working Families Credit championed by Sen. Craig Pridemore (D-Vancouver).
The program, which received $1.25 million in startup funding for 2008, is for low-income individuals or heads of households who receive a federal tax refund using the national Earned Income Tax Credit. In the 2009-10 biennium, when the state credit is slated to start, these tax filers will be eligible to get a state rebate equal to 5 percent of the federal earned-income tax refund that goes to some 350,000 state residents. In 2011 and beyond, the amount will be 10 percent of the EITC refund.
“This was the first year it was introduced and lawmakers saw the importance of it,” says Maya Baxter, executive director of the Statewide Poverty Action Network, which pushed for the bill. “It gets money back in the pockets of the people who will reinvest it immediately in [a] local economy” that has slowed down.
SPAN and other groups also succeeded in expanding eligibility for food stamps and Medicaid, the low-income medical
program, along with winning a rare increase of 3 percent for households who receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.
The groups have tried for years to get the Legislature to boost welfare funding,
which, for a family of three, provides a grant of $546 a month. That’s $200 to $300 short of what a one-bedroom apartment rents for today in Seattle, which is exactly how Baxter says SPAN framed this year’s request to lawmakers: as a way to cover rising housing costs.
There were much larger gains for housing itself, with the final budget approved
by the House and Senate including
an extra $70 million for the Housing Trust Fund, a grant pool that has helped low-income housing developers create 34,000 rental units in the state.
The $70 million brings the trust fund to a total of $200 million and includes $10 million apiece for two new programs. One is a Rapid Response Loan Program, which will make it possible for nonprofit housing operators to snap up property or buildings as they come on the market. A new Nonprofit Equity Program will also provide nonprofits the grants they need to secure much larger bonds for their building projects.
Gov. Chris Gregoire has already signed a bill providing an extra $6 million for the Washington Families Fund, a program that helps prevent families from becoming homeless. And the House and Senate agreed to extend rental assistance to homeless individuals by adding $2.5 million to the THOR transitional housing program, which has previously helped only families.
The final budget also included $6.2 million to set up a paid family leave program that the Legislature passed last year. But lawmakers punted on a decision
this time out as to what method they will ultimately use to fund the program, which promises to pay a parent up to $250 a week for five weeks to care for a newborn.
“Everybody seems to be anxious about the long-term funding,” says one of the program’s original sponsors, Sen. Karen Keiser (D-Kent). “I know there’s no easy answer for that quite yet,” but “the benefits don’t start until October of 2009, so there’s still time to come to a resolution.”
Among other bills for the governor to sign:
- Condos: Renters facing a condo conversion got more time to move (120 days, up from 90) and cities can now make developers pay more in moving money (up to three times the rent instead of $500), but the bill lacks provisions to cap condo conversions.
- Domestic violence: Substitute House Bill 2602 allows victims to take time off work without getting fired.
- Foster kids: The budget tackles three of the four issues — including monthly visits by state caseworkers — that led attorneys for former foster child Jessica Braam to take the state back to court in January. But it remains to be seen, says Braam attorney Casey Trupin, how and when the state will reduce caseloads as required.
- Gangs: Civil rights activists are urging
the governor to veto the final version of House Bill 2712, which allows authorities
to ban purported gang members from certain areas and put their names in a database for five years.
- Health care: Sen. Keiser championed
a number of insurance items this session, including Senate Bills 6333 and 5261. The first sets up a committee to study five different health care plans aimed at providing
affordable coverage for all state residents, and the second allows the insurance commissioner to review and veto rate hikes. Second Substitute
House Bill 2537, sponsored by Rep. Eileen Cody, D-Seattle, creates
a Health Insurance Partnership program that lowers costs for small businesses and their employees, in part, by providing state assistance for workers to pay their premiums.
Bills that didn’t make the final cut:
- Income discrimination: House Bill 1956 would have stopped landlords
from discriminating against potential
tenants who receive welfare or disability payments.
- Rx privacy: Senate Bill 6241 would have prevented drug companies
from buying patient prescription
information from doctors, but got scuttled by what Joshua Welter of Washington’s Community Action Network calls a small army of 25 pharmaceutical lobbyists that he says descended on Olympia.
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