The governor says the budget hole is in the billions. Commerce is still paying people $71.25 to attend an environmental-justice Zoom. It’s not the dollars. It’s the priorities.
Olympia says the cupboard is bare
In June, Gov. Bob Ferguson told state agencies to plan for “significant” cuts. In September, the revenue forecast didn’t “make a dent in the anticipated multibillion-dollar shortfall in the next budget,” according to the Washington State Standard. On Nov. 5, Ferguson said the shortfall is a number starting with “b.” This is the third straight year of budget gaps, and lawmakers have already cut early education and child care.
Here’s where the money and staff time are still going.
Paid to talk environmental justice
On Oct. 27, Commerce invited residents to a Nov. 5 Zoom “community conversation on environmental justice” about two grant programs. The pay: “Compensation of $71.25 is available to eligible participants who have lived experience or household incomes at or below 400% of the federal poverty level.” The meeting ran 75 minutes, and the budget shortfall is in the billions.
Outreach for “communities and tribes,” including ours
Commerce is also hiring a nonprofit to run an energy-resilience outreach campaign in Eastern Washington and the North Olympic Peninsula, which includes Clallam and Jefferson counties. The job is to serve “disproportionately impacted and over-burdened communities and tribes,” and applicants needed five years of experience in “rural, tribal and disaster-impacted communities.” The cap is $230,000 in federal FEMA money, administered by the state.
A state screening of “Fish War”
On Nov. 30, Commerce’s Office of Tribal Relations will screen “Fish War,” a documentary on the Boldt decision. The film’s website opens by saying Washington’s restrictions on tribal fishing were “a declaration of war.”
It was co-produced by Northwest Treaty Tribes Media, the media arm of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, and even the Seattle International Film Festival called it an “activism documentary.”
That’s not a history lesson. It’s a state agency lending its stamp to advocacy.
Priorities
None of this alone closes a billion-dollar gap. But when public money and public agencies are used to advance the agendas of sovereign governments that don’t answer to our voters, don’t be surprised if there isn’t enough left for education, the Simdars Road Interchange promised since 1998, or a struggling hospital (and our county’s largest employer), Olympic Medical Center.
If Olympia wants us to believe the cupboard is bare, it could start by acting like it. Tell your legislators whether this is the right use of public time and money in a billion-dollar budget deficit year.
22 years of the world economy and the tribes taking over the till...Yep we are broke.
When your governor begs the Tooth Fairy -- Uncle Sugar -- for relief required because the democcrat-dominated legislature can't say no, you know you're living in a leftwing-dominated fantasy land. Whateve happened to government doing nothing more than the basics? And why should our tax money be funneled to well-heeled soveriegn nations that compete directly with the regular folk?