GovernorInsleeproposal would authorize roughly $5 billion in bonds and $9.2 billion across funds, agency adviser tells Ways & Means

For the record, my name is Jen Masterson. I'm the senior budget adviser for the capital budget at the state's Office of Financial Management, Masterson said as she opened her presentation to the Senate Ways & Means Committee on Jan. 3 in Olympia.

Masterson said the governor's capital proposal includes a little over $5,000,000,000 in bond authority and, when all funds are counted, totals about $9,200,000,000. "This amount was increased $374,000,000 due to the revenue package proposed by Governor Inslee," she said.

Why it matters: the capital budget sets state investments in schools, housing, infrastructure and climate projects that carry multi‑year construction timelines and often leverage federal or local matching dollars.

Masterson walked Committee members through the major allocations the executive branch prioritized for the 2025 supplemental and the 2025-27 biennial budgets. Key figures she presented include $621,000,000 for housing programs that directly create or preserve housing units; nearly $490,000,000 in climate‑related investments (including $200,000,000 from the Climate Commitment Account); $1,200,000,000 in combined federal and state funding for broadband; and proposed funding for K‑12 school construction, school modernization and seismic work.

She identified guiding principles used to build the package: prioritize essential state agency construction, emphasize environmental sustainability and implementation of the Clean Buildings Act, and support ongoing grant programs that assist local communities. "In building budget recommendations for Governor Inslee, these were the guiding principles," Masterson said.

Masterson also described how bond and other fund sources are shown separately in the proposal and noted that some fund sources are dedicated for specific uses, such as federal broadband grants and trust revenues for school construction. She said the remaining bond authority for a 2026 supplemental is small relative to the overall program.

Committee members asked clarifying questions about the bond model and program timing; Masterson said the bond model was produced in coordination with the state treasurer's office and the increase resulted from the revenue package. She directed members to the electronic bill book for full documents and budget graphs.

Provenance: topic introduced in Jen Masterson's presentation and concluded at the end of her remarks to the committee.