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Leaders outline budget trade-offs, charity-care limits and bills on housing, recycling and education
Summary
At a leadership media availability, officials previewed a package of priorities including a review of higher-education scholarship funding, a proposed limit on charity care for nonresidents, delayed housing legislation (HB 2049), recycling bill HB 1607, and discussion of an income-tax proposal and tort-liability assumptions.
Legislative leaders used a media availability to preview budget and policy priorities for the session, addressing higher-education scholarships, charity-care pressures in border communities, a delayed housing bill, a proposed income-tax draft and recycling legislation.
Unidentified Speaker 6 raised a proposal to restore funding to Washington College Grant and College Bound scholarships cut in 2025; Speaker 8 said such restorations would be considered as part of operating-budget planning but it was too early to promise reversals.
Border hospitals and charity care were a focus. Unidentified Speaker 9 described a House bill to limit non-emergency charity care to Washington residents and urged leadership to weigh in; Speaker 3 said he had heard from a Pend Oreille County hospital CEO that nearly "something approaching 40% of all of the charity care that they were giving was to Idaho residents," and Speaker 10 said the hearing later that day should shed light on the issue.
On homelessness, Speaker 6 noted the House Housing Committee delayed executive session on HB 2049, which would restrict local enforcement of anti-camping rules unless adequate shelter exists; leaders said the issue is complex and communities statewide are weighing competing interests.
Speakers also discussed a possible state income-tax draft. When asked, Unidentified Speaker 14 was told by Speaker 3 that a draft was circulating among tax experts and affected parties and could be filed later that week or next; Speaker 3 said offsets would either be included in the bill or released as a roadmap alongside the introduction.
Other items included a House Joint Memorial on opting into a $1,700 federal education tax credit (Representative Michael Keaton), and Representative Monica Stonier's House bill on adopting a recycling deposit-refund program (HB 1607), which leadership said may appear on executive lists.
Leaders repeatedly emphasized fiscal uncertainty, noting assumptions around tort-liability savings and the difficulty of forecasting costs where a small number of cases drive large expenditures. No votes or legislative decisions were recorded in the availability; speakers said many measures will be decided in committee processes ahead of floor deadlines.
The media availability ended without formal actions; leaders invited further questions and said they will work through committee and budgeting processes in the coming weeks.
