Committee hears bill to add WaTech cybersecurity staff to civil service, supporters say it corrects statutory anomaly

The State Government and Tribal Relations Committee heard testimony on House Bill 2,249 on both staff and sponsor statements and later received public testimony in support.

Representative Osman Slahuddin, prime sponsor, said the bill was “brought to me by the Washington Federation for State Employees” and is intended to correct an unintended statutory discrepancy that left Office of Cybersecurity employees at Washington Technology Solutions outside the civil service protections that apply to similar IT security classifications across state agencies. Slahuddin said the change is narrow and would not eliminate other WaTech exemptions.

Tim Tharp, organizing director for the Washington Federation of State Employees, told the committee the union already represents IT professionals with the same job titles at other agencies and that when some WaTech cybersecurity employees attempted to organize they were blocked by an unexpected exemption. “We have a small group of workers who did everything right, want to join a union, and who were denied due to an exemption under the law with no clear intent,” Tharp said, urging passage.

Staff described the current exemption and confirmed the bill’s effect would be to add WaTech officers and employees who perform network and system security duties to the state civil service law so they can participate in collective bargaining and related civil-service protections.

The committee closed the hearing on HB 2,249 after testimony; no committee vote on final passage was recorded in the transcript. Next procedural steps would be determined by the committee’s schedule.