PORT ANGELES — Calling it “the most difficult budget session in our lifetime,” Rep. Steve Tharinger said his first legislative session was marked by concerns for the effects of dramatic cutbacks in state services.
What made it so difficult, the Sequim Democrat said, “was just knowing the impact on people’s lives.”
While demand for state services is going up in poor economic times, he said, the Legislature passed a budget that critically pared down dollars for health, education and social services.
The two-year budget slashed $4.8 billion, amounting to a two-year spending plan of $32 billion, the lowest per capita budget since 1986, said Tharinger, who was elected last year to his seat representing the 24th District, which covers Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County.
That helped close a $5.1 billion state deficit for the next two years and left an ending balance of about $725 million.
While lawmakers held to important programs such as child health care, Tharinger said, capital investments that will benefit North Olympic Peninsula communities also were spared.
That included $90 million for the U.S. Highway 101 widening project proposed for the summer of 2012, $10 million to invest in a future sewer system for the unincorporated community of Carlsborg west of Sequim and $2 million toward Peninsula College remodeling of 20,000-square-foot Building 202 at historic Fort Worden State Park.
Introducing Tharinger to more than 20 attending the Port Angeles Business Association breakfast meeting at Joshua’s Restaurant on Tuesday, Clallam County GOP Chairman Dick Pilling called Tharinger “a serial overachiever” and asked why it took the Legislature so long to pass a budget.
Tharinger in April announced he will not seek a fourth term as a Clallam County commissioner in November.
He has participated in county commissioner meetings by speakerphone from Olympia.
Living up to a campaign commitment, the first-term state representative said he returned a little more than $400 to the county for meetings he missed because he was called away by state legislative business.
He said it added up to between 13 and 14 hours missed as one of the three Clallam County commissioners.
“I kept track of my hours, not at meetings,” he said.
Other severe cuts Tharinger saw were $300 million out of unemployment insurance obligations, with $95 million coming from the federal government, of which $60 million went to providing $25 a week to children of the unemployed.
A new workers’ compensation plan for those injured on the job will save more than $5 billion over the next four to five years, he said, voicing his concern about paying it out in one lump sum to a worker who might run out of money while suffering chronic pain in the long term.
“That obligation falls on the rest of society,” he said. “That to me doesn’t seem to make sense.”
The Washington State Ferries budget saved $20 million on work force, and another $11 million was saved by lifting the sales tax on fuel to power the world’s largest ferry system.
Tharinger said because of the ferry system’s importance to the Peninsula, he and Sequim Democratic Rep. Kevin Van De Wege fought hard for few cuts to ferry service.
Tharinger mentioned that, for the first time, the Legislature allowed state colleges to set their own tuitions, which will range from 12 percent to 16 percent increases.
Tharinger also said he supported biomass as a renewable energy source — burning wood waste left behind by timber harvest clear-cuts to generate power for paper mills, such as those owned by Nippon Paper Industries USA in Port Angeles and Port Townsend Paper Corp., which produces kraft paper for cardboard box making.
He said biomass technology exists to keep air quality clean.
Pilling asked Tharinger why hydropower is not declared a renewable resource.
“It’s totally political science,” Tharinger responded, but the lawmaker added that he believes it will be part of the discussion in the 2012 legislative session.
Tharinger said the state’s public utility districts might oppose the idea because Clallam County Public Utility District and the Jefferson County PUD would not benefit from it.
Asked about the proposed privatization of the state-run liquor business, Tharinger called it a matter intended “to get people’s attention” to the state liquor board, which he believes could be more entrepreneurial.
Tharinger, who is a major supporter of a proposed multimillion-dollar Carlsborg sewer system — which would cut back the use of septic systems in commercial and residential areas — said, “We don’t have an infinite petri dish.
“My view is we cannot continue to pollute” the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
“My opinion is we need to start making more investments,” he said, to fight Peninsula pollution of its waterways.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.