Thornton Street overpass funding still not a certainty

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee called state legislators back to a special session last night after they were unable to adopt a constitutionally required balanced budget during regular session.

Legislators had until Thursday night to present the governor with a balanced budget to sign during their 60-day regular session. When they did not, the governor held to his threat to veto all but the most important bills to come out of the special session saying,

Legislators have one fundamental task they are required to do every year and that is to keep the state’s budget balanced. They had sixty days to make some relatively minor adjustments, and have yet to make the reasonable compromises that are necessary. I am keeping the clock running. There is no break and no rest – legislators need to balance the books and finish their job.

As a result, budgets that received approval in both the state senate and house, like the transportation budget, are now going to be revisited to identify program and project funding to be cut. According to some reports, cuts needed are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The total state budget is nearly $40 billion.

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This puts the $19.2 million for the Thornton Street overpass and $21.1 million for improvements to the Slater Road interchange back on the chopping block along with all other projects in the transportation budget that had been previously passed by both the senate and house but had yet to be signed by the governor.

Ferndale city staff told Discover Ferndale they had been in communication with lawmakers in Olympia last night and this morning and remain “cautiously optimistic.”

The City urges residents to contact their legislators through the legislative hotline (1-800-562-6000)or by email (http://app.leg.wa.gov/rosters/Members) and tell them to continue to fight to keep the funding for [the] Thornton Street overpass in the transportation budget.