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Entering its fourth straight year of major budget cuts, the 2012 Washington State Legislature is under way. In a rare one-on-one interview, the Puget Sound Business Journal sat down with Speaker of the House Frank Chopp (D-Seattle) to talk about new — and remaining — challenges state lawmakers are facing, and the Jobs Now plan being discussed.
Where are we at in starting the 2012 legislative session? How is the state better situated from the closing of the December session? We’ve been working for months, way before December, on a solution for the operating budget for the state. We made a (nearly) $500 million down payment as part of that solution in December, and the governor has proposed some other ideas, and we also have some additional ideas as to close the rest of the budget challenge in this session. I think it’s important to note we made significant progress in December with the (down payment) — it was technically $480 million — as part of the solution.