U.S. government invests $11M in Washington conservation efforts

More than 3 million Washington residents will begin earning benefits through Washington’s new long-term care insurance program on July 1.

Working people who did not opt out will contribute 0.58% of each paycheck to the Washington Cares Fund through automatic payroll deductions. Those who contribute to the fund will be entitled to a $36,500 lifetime benefit, which will be adjusted for inflation, for long-term care services when they need them.

The deductions begin July 1, 2023, but the benefits won’t be accessible until July 1, 2026.

The money can be used for a range of services to help people meet their long-term care needs while remaining in their homes. Those services could include transportation, paying a caregiver, home safety modifications or home-delivered meals.

Washington employers are required to withhold contributions from workers’ paychecks for the program. People with private long-term care insurance can opt out of the program, however, by filling out an exemption application.

Washington state will receive $1.2 billion — about $300 million more than previously projected — as part of a federal government program that aims to bring broadband internet to every household in the country.

The funding, announced by President Biden earlier today, represents the most ambitious federal effort yet to bridge the digital divide in rural communities. The money comes from the 2021 infrastructure spending bill.

Mark Vasconi, head of the Washington state Broadband Office, said challenges to the Federal Communications Commission’s long-criticized maps of national internet service helped identify some 71,000 additional unserved households across Washington, a more than 40% increase over previous estimates.

Vasconi said the crowdsourced map revision process likely contributed to the state’s netting significantly more money than previously projected, since the program favored states with spottier access. Officials had expected to receive about $900 million for the state prior to today’s announcement of $1.2 billion.

“It’s a dramatic improvement,” Vasconi said of the mapping process outcome.

States now have six months to submit initial proposals to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to unlock the first 20% of the funds.

Vasconi said the subsequent planning process will be more “prescriptive” than previous efforts, with tighter rules about how administrators evaluate which projects to fund and more explicit rules regarding tribal consultation and workforce development. 

“We’ve been wanting to see this kind of funding support for as long as broadband service has been available,” Vasconi said. “It’s finally here, and a lot of work is going to proceed in order to effectively use the funding so that broadband service is a reality for all households in the country.”

Washington state Sen. Kevin Van De Wege, D-Port Angeles, announced a bid Wednesday for Public Lands Commissioner in 2024.

A statewide elected position, the Lands Commissioner oversees the Washington Department of Natural Resources and, among other things, the state’s wildland firefighting capabilities. 

Wednesday’s announcement comes as current Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz pursues a bid for governor in next year’s election.

In a statement, Van De Wege, a moderate whose Olympic Peninsula legislative district is one of the last rural regions in Washington to elect Democrats, touted his experience as a career firefighter.

"When I say I understand the danger and destruction caused by wildfires, which are becoming more frequent and more destructive, I speak from experience,” Van De Wege said in prepared remarks. “Of everything our state Department of Natural Resources [DNR] can do, preventing and reducing wildfires needs to top the list.”

First elected to the Senate in 2016, Van De Wege previously served five terms in the state House. He currently chairs the Senate Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks Committee.

King County Metropolitan Council Chair Dave Upthegrove has already said he is leaning toward a bid for Lands Commissioner next year. Upthegrove is a three-term council member who previously served in the Legislature, including time chairing the House Environment Committee.

Also this week, Nick Brown, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, announced he was stepping down from that position. Brown is reportedly interested in running for state Attorney General, as incumbent and Democrat Bob Ferguson also pursues a gubernatorial bid. Brown previously served as counsel to Gov. Jay Inslee.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture has spotted the first adult Japanese beetle of this year in Yakima County on Tuesday. 

The beetle, which is not established in Washington, can feed on 300 different plants, creating concern that it could negatively impact several of Washington’s top agricultural commodities, such as cherries and hops. It was first spotted in Sunnyside in 2020.

The Japanese beetle’s presence in the Central Washington county has grown since then. Tens of thousands of beetles have been spotted in Sunnyside, Grandview and Wapato, and the state has started a yard debris quarantine program along with other measures in a multiyear effort to eradicate these beetles.

Public engagement specialist Karla Salp wrote on the WSDA blog that the Department has set traps in areas near the high school in Grandview where the beetle was detected, in anticipation of thousands of additional beetles emerging there. 

Salp also outlined several ways Yakima Valley residents can assist the agency in its capture and eradication effort, including reporting sightings online, installing traps on their property and allowing WSDA to spray on their property. 

The Washington State Department of Agriculture recently completed a second round of pesticide treatment in the affected areas this spring. 

Despite low unemployment and solid job growth in May throughout the state and most counties, new figures from the Washington Employment Security Department point to slowing economic activity. 

The state posted a 3.3% unemployment rate in May, compared to 3.8% in May 2022, according to the figures released Tuesday. 

Among the state’s metropolitan areas, Walla Walla, which includes the southeast counties of Walla Walla and Columbia, reported the lowest unemployment rate at 2.9%, a drop from 4.2% in May 2022. In contrast, Yakima County, in south-central Washington, reported the highest unemployment rate among metropolitan areas at 4.2%, a drop from 5.6% in May 2022. 

The Seattle metropolitan area — which includes King and Snohomish counties — showed a 3.2% unemployment rate, an increase from 2.6% in May 2022. The job losses may reflect the thousands of layoffs at tech companies headquartered here. 

Asotin County reported the lowest employment rate among the state’s 39 counties, at 2.4%. The rural county, in Washington’s southeast corner, is part of the Lewiston, Idaho, metropolitan area. 

Ferry County, in northwest Washington, reported the highest unemployment rate, at 6%, though that was a decrease from 8.3% in May 2022. 

Employment Security reported seasonally adjusted unemployment rates, which account for occurrences such as holiday hiring, for the state and the Seattle area last week. Rates for the state and Seattle area, seasonally adjusted, were 4.1% and 3.0% in May, respectively. 

While unemployment dropped from April’s figures, it increased compared to May 2022, when the unemployment rate was 3.9% for the state and 2.9% for the Seattle area.

While the drops in unemployment in most counties are a positive indicator for the economy, Washington’s year-over-year job growth appears to be gradually slowing, according to the state.

In May, Washington reported 104,700 more jobs year over year, a 2.97% increase. However, that is a less robust year-over-year increase than April’s, when the state saw a 3.18% job growth rate, or 111,300. 

Job growth statewide has been slowing in recent months, especially compared to several months in 2022, which may serve as a lagging indicator of an impending recession or an economic slowdown. 

Among the most robust job growth in the state’s metropolitan counties was in Olympia, in Thurston County, which reported 5,200 more jobs year-over-year, a 4.1% increase. In contrast, the Wenatchee metropolitan area, which consists of the north-central counties of Chelan and Douglas, reported 200 fewer jobs year-over-year, a 0.42% decrease.

Six immigrants from India are on a hunger strike at the ICE Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, according to advocacy organization La Resistencia.

The immigrants are refusing food to draw attention to a number of issues, including lengthy and indefinite detention. They note that one man in the group has been held for eight months. Another striker says he has medical issues that have not been adequately addressed.

The Indian detainees, all vegetarians, also say their food has not been adequate and they cannot supplement their diet with food from the commissary because the prices are so high. The strikers also say their health has been affected by a lack of exercise outside, and that their immigration proceedings have not been handled properly.

A request for comment from the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, was not immediately returned on Thursday. La Resistencia says they are planning a protest at the Tacoma facility for Sunday, June 18.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act, which requires child welfare departments to prioritize adoption and foster care placement of Indigenous children with family or extended kin.

Haaland v. Brackeen questioned the constitutionality of this 1978 law, which also requires child welfare departments to give Native nations notice as soon as an investigation begins into a Native family to determine if the child needs services or removal.

The case involved three children with Native heritage and white families that either wanted to adopt them or were fostering them. They challenged the Indian Child Welfare Act as unconstitutional using several different arguments, including alleging that Congress lacks authority in those decisions.

The 7-2 decision, written by Amy Coney Barrett, lifts an especially sharp pen against the state of Texas for claiming with “creative arguments” that the ICWA harms Texas by requiring it to break its promise to its citizens that it will be “colorblind” in child-custody proceedings. Barrett writes that if this argument were legitimate, then states would be able to bring constitutional challenges every time they have to enforce a federal law.

She goes on, “Texas tries to finesse this problem by characterizing ICWA as a ‘fiscal trap,’ forcing it to discriminate against its citizens or lose federal funds.” Barrett dismisses this argument as vague and disconnected from reality.

The Seattle City Council voted 9 to 0 to send the $970 million Housing Levy to the November ballot for voter approval. The seven-year property tax renewal would help pay for construction and operations of new subsidized affordable housing, affordable homeownership, higher wages for workers in the sector, rental assistance and more.

Of the nearly $1 billion the levy is estimated to generate over seven years, $707 million would pay for construction of more than 3,000 units of subsidized rental housing. The Washington Department of Commerce projects Seattle will need to build 112,000 units of housing by 2044 to meet demand, and more than 64,000 of those units must be affordable to people earning less than 50% of the area median income. As of 2022, 50% of area median income was $51,800 for a two-person household. 

Another $112 million will be spent on operations, ongoing maintenance and wages for workers in permanent supportive housing projects for people exiting homelessness. The affordable-housing and homelessness sector has struggled in recent years with high turnover and extended vacancies as workers burn out in the face of challenging work and low wages.

The tax will also provide $50.7 million for low-income homeownership programs; $30 million for rental assistance and other programs to keep low-income residents housed; $30 million to acquire and preserve existing market rate buildings that can be converted into affordable housing; and $60 million for administration costs.

If approved, the Housing Levy would charge $0.45 per $1,000 of assessed value beginning in 2024, costing about $375 per year for the owner of a Seattle home with the current median value of $831,000. Low income seniors, military veterans and residents with disabilities are exempt from local property tax levies, per state law.

Seattle voters have approved the Housing Levy six times since 1986, and approved a similar housing bond measure in 1981. The $970 million 2023 Housing Levy would more than triple the expected draw from the property tax compared to the $290 million 2016 Housing Levy set to expire this year.

Mayor Bruce Harrell proposed the significantly larger levy in March 2023 in recognition of Seattle’s growing and interconnected affordable-housing and homelessness crises.

Washington schools chief Chris Reykdal on Monday announced his intent to run next year for a third term to run the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The office, which oversees some elements of the state’s K-12 schools, is a nonpartisan position.

Reykdal is a former Democratic lawmaker from Olympia first elected to the statewide schools office in 2016 and re-elected in 2020.

In his announcement Tuesday, Reykdal touted endorsements by Gov. Jay Inslee and U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor.

Among other things, his platform for a third term includes boosting mental health supports for students, expanding technical education, providing nutritious meals for all students and fully funding special education programs.

“The next four years, and beyond, need to focus on the transformational changes necessary for our children and grandchildren to live healthy, sustainable lives in the state of Washington,” Reykdal said in prepared remarks. “Our public schools are at the heart of that vision, and I will never stop fighting for the success of our students, our school employees, and our communities.”

Former state Rep. Brad Klippert, a conservative Republican from Kennewick who ran last year for Washington secretary of state, appears to be launching a bid for superintendent.

Monday’s announcement comes as candidates – including Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz – move forward with campaigns for governor in the wake of Inslee’s decision not to run again. Candidates will formally file election papers next May.

Those campaigns would create vacancies for both of those statewide elected seats. Meanwhile, Office of Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has announced his retirement, meaning that statewide seat will also be up for grabs.

After nearly 18 months, the state’s largest homeless encampment closed Friday after securing housing for its last resident.

Camp Hope, located on state Department of Transportation property in Spokane’s East Central neighborhood, sheltered up to 600 unhoused people last summer. As a coalition of service providers worked to relocate residents to other housing options, the population dwindled to fewer than 70 by early March.

Workers are now cleaning the site, including removing fencing and a portable office, according to WSDOT. No new individuals will be allowed to live there.

The encampment sparked political debate and several lawsuits. Local officials wanted the state to clear the encampment more quickly because of concerns over crime and drug use, but state officials and local homeless advocates said that while it also wanted to clear the encampment, it was necessary to address its residents’ underlying issues.

In March, a Spokane County Superior Court judge agreed that the city of Spokane had met the requirements to declare the encampment a nuisance property but allowed the encampment to continue operation while all parties worked on a closing plan.

Camp Hope started in December 2021 as a protest at Spokane City Hall over the lack of available shelter beds. Protesters then relocated to the WSDOT property off the Interstate 90 interchange.

While WSDOT did not grant permission to use the site, state officials said they wanted a gradual and “more humane” resolution to close the site. The state contracted with the nonprofit Empire Health Foundation to coordinate camp operations while simultaneously finding housing, mental health and other assistance for its residents.

Because the camp was on WSDOT property, the state agency was able to use $25 million from its Right of Way Safety initiative plus additional funds from the Department of Commerce to provide assistance and housing. That included a $15 million grant to Catholic Charities’ Catalyst Project to rehabilitate a hotel into temporary housing for nearly 100 people.