The 2nd special session is underway in Olympia.  The first 30 day special session yielded little but posturing toward the end.

Now that the fiscal year deadline is approaching and talk of a government “shut down” has emerged, legislators in both chambers and on both sides of the political aisle are willing to make deals and compromises.

This was evidenced late Thursday night when the state Senate passed EHB 2075 and sent it to Gov. Inslee for his signature.

This bill made a retroactive fix to the estate tax due to a recent state Supreme Court decision. This will save the state about $160 million, which can go to education.

There are still sticking points between the two chambers but, again there was movement on a major policy issue late Thursday when both chambers passed a bill amending the Model Toxics Control Act to improve environmental cleanup. The House and Senate are still in disagreement over some K-12 education policy and how each responds to McCleary and by how much.

The House continues to insist on new tax revenue, including repealing the R&D tax incentives that are widely used by IT and life sciences companies across the state. The Senate continues to resist and will point to the next state revenue forecast and say that there is enough revenue from economic growth to fund education.

It is a test of wills between the leadership of the House and Senate. The June 30 fiscal year deadline will force both chambers to a budget deal, in fact probably by June 21 to avoid closing down some state operations.

WTIA is on the ground in Olympia keeping tabs on developments and talking to lawmakers regularly. We hope to see $50 million or so spent on STEM related degrees in the universities and for continued focus on improving math and science achievement in K-12.

We will update this blog when a budget deal emerges.