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Secretary of State outlines fiscal-note process, litigation assumptions and ranked-choice voting costs

State Government Tribal Relations Committee · February 10, 2026
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Summary

Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and staff explained a three-day fiscal-note process, workload-to-FTE methods, a $28,000 per-FTE standard 'backpack' cost and how litigation and ranked-choice voting introduce uncertainty; the office urged early consultation and said some litigation risk assessments may be marked 'indeterminate.'

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and his budget team told the legislative committee on Feb. 17 that the office's fiscal-note process is designed to be neutral and that certain policy areas can create large, uncertain costs.

Tim Gallivan, budget and procurement manager in the Secretary of State's office, described a structured three-day fiscal-note workflow after assignment from the Office of Financial Management (OFM): day 1 assignment and subject-matter allocation, day 2 division coordination and outreach to outside agencies (including the attorney general's office when needed), and day 3 internal review and submission to OFM. "A key guardrail in this process is neutrality," Gallivan said. "If the language says x, we typically estimate on x."

Gallivan described how the…

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