Wash. Legislature passes budget, adjourns 60-day session

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) – The Washington Legislature has adjourned its 60-day legislative session after sending Gov. Jay Inslee a supplemental state budget that puts more money toward teacher salaries, a final step in a multiyear process to bring Washington into compliance with a state Supreme Court mandate on education.

The chambers adjourned late Thursday night after a busy day that included approving a law to make it easier to prosecute police who commit bad shootings, updating a law that made it uniquely difficult to hold officers criminally liable. Inslee signed the measure, ending years of wrestling over the existing law, which forces prosecutors to prove the officers acted with malice – a hurdle no other state has.

Inslee will sign the budget at a later date. The Senate passed the plan with a 25-24 vote after the House passed it 54-44.

Under the $391 million supplemental budget, property owners will see a 30-cent cut to statewide property taxes next year, dropping from $2.70 per $1,000 of assessed value to $2.40.

Under the plan, $935 million from the remaining property tax revenues will be diverted to a specified education account instead of going to the constitutionally-protected “rainy day” fund. That money will be put toward teacher salaries and other K-12 investments.

The plan makes several tweaks and adds more than $750 million in net spending to the current $43.7 billion two-year state budget that was adopted last summer. While the main focus in on education funding, the budget also allocates additional money into funding mental health, heath care and higher education, among other areas.

Lawmakers are working to expedite a timeline on fully funding teacher salaries as they try to satisfy a 2012 ruling that found that K-12 school funding was not adequate.