OLYMPIA — The North Olympic Peninsula’s two members of the state House of Representatives took different views Thursday on a billion-dollar state revenue forecast for the next three years.
The unexpected $959 million, which will erase a projected state deficit that had worried the governor and legislators, is based on a better-than-expected economy statewide, especially in the construction industry.
“It’s certainly a problem I’m willing to face versus a deficit,” said Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam.
“I’ll take having too much money rather than not enough.”
“You need to understand that is paper money,” said Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, in a separate interview.
“This is a forecast, and we have seen national events make a forecast disappear or change radically in an instant.”
Kessler and Buck, along with Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, in the state Senate, represent the state’s 24th District, which includes Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County.
Kessler, the House majority leader, said she gave a floor speech during the last legislative session saying money was being put into savings accounts for health insurance, education and pensions because state revenue was expected to increase.
The naysayers said the state would be in a deficit at the end of the biennium, she said.
The latest revenue projections are conservative, showing the state’s hot real estate market settling, Kessler said.
This projected increase in revenue is why lawmakers saved the $1 billion going into this biennium, she said.
The new projection adds nearly $524 million more for the year remaining in the current two-year budget period, plus $436 million more in the upcoming biennium.
Actual tax collections are up $135 million above the level presumed in a February forecast.
The new projection erases another that projected a $718 million deficit for next year.
“It’s just what we predicted or what we were hopeful for,” Kessler said.
