State Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, and Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, hosted an hour-long virtual community town hall Tuesday, March 25, over Zoom.
20th Legislative District voters were asked to call in or join on their computer with questions for their district representatives.
The lawmakers began by introducing themselves and speaking about their bills and the work they are doing this session.
The audience asked a wide range of questions, but concerns over education, the state's budget deficit — totaling more than $15 billion — and rising taxes took center stage.
Democrats from the state Senate and the House announced their budget proposals just one day earlier on Monday, March 25, rolling out plans for a range of new and increased taxes while making cuts to some areas of the budget.
The new taxes range from taxes on wealthy individuals and companies to allowing the state and localities to increase property tax revenue. Republicans recently released an opposing proposal called the $ave Washington budget, which included no cuts or new taxes, though their plan won’t move forward as Democrats hold command of both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office.
“You asked us to talk about our bills early on. I would set all the bills I’m personally working on aside and say the most important thing we got going on is the budget.” Braun said. “The operating budget in particular.”
The operating budget is one of three being crafted in the Legislature, which must also adopt transportation and capital budgets this session.
The three local lawmakers each have deep experience with one of these budgets: Braun with the operating budget, Orcutt with the transportation budget and Abbarno with the capital budget.
The last question of the night asked the legislators to share their top three ways to deal with the budget deficit.
Despite coming from the three separate sides of the budget, the group presented a united front in line with the Senate Republicans’ $ave Washington budget proposal.
“I think, at the end of the day, we all agree that this is a priorities crisis, not a budget crisis, and that this can be solved without raising taxes,” Abbarno said. “We can do this. We should be doing this in each of these three budgets.”
The three explained one by one that their response to the budget crisis would be no new taxes and no expensive new programs. The $ave Washington budget is pitched as a budget that maintains the funding from previous years without any increases.
“There is a lot of opportunity to save money without cutting services to our state's citizens,” Braun said. “We need to make sure to fulfill our paramount duty, which is to fund basic education. We do it in a way that keeps schools on the right track, and we’ve got to fund services to our most vulnerable.”
Community members also brought up education and concerns over student access to skill centers and other forms of education that teach trades, vocational skills and other job applicable talents.
Orcutt said he recognizes where improvements need to be made in the 20th District.
“We do have a gap in Cowlitz and in southern and eastern Lewis County. That's something I've tried to work on before just to get a lot of resistance from the school districts … They tend to not want to give up the programs that they have at their particular school districts,” Orcutt said.
However, the three also pointed to growing career and technical education (CTE) programs and other resources that are useful other than skills centers.
“Not every community is going to have the exact same pathway and the same formula,” Abbarno said. “Some are going to use skill centers, some are gonna use CTE programs within the high schools and others are gonna use their community colleges as outlets.”
Other topics touched on by community members included consumer protection issues, messaging about artificial intelligence and questions about rent control. A large number of community members were not able to ask their questions before the hour-long session ended.
The legislators ask that community members with questions reach out and ask them using the contact information listed on their legislative websites. That information can be found for Braun at https://johnbraun.src.wastateleg.org/, for Abbarno at https://peterabbarno.houserepublicans.wa.gov/ and for Orcutt at https://edorcutt.houserepublicans.wa.gov/.
