MOUNT VERNON — State Rep. Debra Lekanoff put it bluntly.
“I’m not going to paint a pretty picture, my friends,” she told a packed room in the Mount Vernon Library Commons on Saturday, March 15. “It’s going to be hard.”
The crowd was gathered for a town hall with legislators representing Washington’s 40th District, which includes parts of Bellingham and Mount Vernon, Anacortes and San Juan County.
Another crowd packed into Ferndale High School for a town hall meeting with Sen. Sharon Shewmake, Rep. Joe Timmons and Rep. Alicia Rule took place at the same time Saturday.
In Mount Vernon, Lekanoff, who spoke alongside Sen. Liz Lovelett and Rep. Alex Ramel, was referring to the state funding cuts legislators are hammering out in response to a budget deficit that could be as high as $15 billion over four years. Last month, Gov. Bob Ferguson laid out a plan for a $4 billion state spending reduction in addition to former Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposed $3 billion cuts.
All three legislators at the town hall addressed the funding shortfall. Ramel suggested early childhood education and Western Washington University funding should not be cut, adding the Legislature should target “inefficiencies.”
Lovelett said state governments across the country have faced budget challenges after COVID-19 relief dollars went away. She called attention to the value of government services.
“I’ve been seeing a lot of talking points about ‘rampant government spending.’ Well, you’re sitting in some rampant government spending right now,” she said, referring to the library commons building.
Lekanoff said people would have to support each other as services are curtailed.
The legislators fielded questions from the audience about issues from transportation to natural resource protection to firearm permits.
Several people asked about progressive revenue, or taxes that vary by income level. Ramel said progressive revenue was a “top priority” this year. Washington has the “second most upside down tax code in the country,” he said, noting low-income earners pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes than higher earning residents.
He added he supports imposing taxes on assets such as stocks and bonds.
All three legislators spoke about education funding. Lovelett highlighted a special education funding bill that passed the Senate this year and is now in the House. The bill would take away a cap the state imposes on the percentage of special education students per school district it can support, among other funding increases.
Erin Grimes, a graduate teaching assistant at Western Washington University, attended the town hall to represent the school’s student-worker union. The university has cut dozens of positions this academic year in response to an $18 million budget deficit.
Grimes, who teaches in the math department, said some of those positions were in charge of grading students’ homework.
Now, students must use an “online portal, like a text box that’s graded by a robot,” she said. “And it’s a really poor substitute for [an] educator’s job.”
Other cuts have taken away other essential campus workers, she added.
Union members came to the meeting to thank legislators for supporting taxes on the wealthy and to ensure they understand the impacts of the cuts to higher education, Grimes said.
Julie Jaramillo attended with a group from the state child care and education worker union. She said the union wanted to show support for state funding for child care.
“I’m very worried for my families,” said Jaramillo, who has worked in child care for almost 30 years. “They depend [on] those funds from the state, because they can’t afford to pay child care.”
For the children Jaramillo cares for, she and her husband are a second family, she said.
As the town hall ended, Ramel pledged to “keep fighting” for the local community.
“The chaos and corruption coming out of Washington, D.C. is disheartening,” he said. “And it is so empowering to see so many people get up on a Saturday morning and come to the library to listen to us talk and find ways to participate in democracy.”
Sophia Gates covers rural Whatcom and Skagit counties. She is a Washington State Murrow Fellow whose work is underwritten by taxpayers and available outside CDN's paywall. Reach her at sophiagates@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 131.
