Images courtesy of TVW
Governor Jay Inslee took some time to answer questions from reporters Thursday, and much of the discussion focused on housing.
The Governor continues to argue that the state needs to scale up its spending on housing beyond the $800 million in the State Senate’s budget proposal, and he says he’s among many Washingtonians passionate about the issue, “both from a sense of frustration of seeing this in their neighborhoods and these terribly unhygienic conditions, and of a sense of frustration and, to some degree, anger,” Inslee says, “but also from, a sense of compassion of seeing people having to live in these conditions.”
With 25,000 homeless people in the state, Inslee has called for a $4 billion dollar bond referendum on your ballot to build more housing as quickly as possible. It’s a plan he says wouldn’t raise the state’s ratio of debt to revenue beyond where it usually is. He compares it to a home mortgage. Inslee says, “When you issue a bond, and then you build a house, that money just disappear. You have a house. You have an apartment building. You have rapid transitional housing. You have an asset.”
The Governor also says it’s not the time to threaten lawmakers with a special session if they don’t pass the referendum and that he’s open to other financing ideas.
A state budget proposal with an additional $3 billion for education drew praise from Governor Inslee.
As he touted that education spending boost, the Governor was asked what could be done to help students with pandemic learning loss and to help schools with losses in enrollment numbers. He says we’re in a post-pandemic adjustment because schools added teachers and staff to help with the shift to online learning even as enrollment numbers dropped. Inslee says as those numbers continue to fall, school districts will have to make adjustments. As Governor Inslee continues to push state lawmakers for more housing money as part of his homelessness plan, he says the state needs to come up with that money from places beyond the usual sources. Inslee says we still need to attract good teachers, so he’s pleased the budget proposals so far include teacher pay raises.
The Governor was also asked to gauge how his climate initiatives are doing, and he says programs like “Cap and Invest” are just getting started, but he feels like they’re working well and he’s confident the successes will continue.
You can watch the Governor’s entire news conference on TVW here.
