At the City of Tacoma's afternoon study session today, Tacoma Water, Rail and Power presented their budgets.

The good news: There's no increase in rates for power.

The bad news: Water rates could go up about 8 percent.

The other news: Each utility added 17 percent or more for their labor budgets over the 2009-2010 biennium.

While the city has been mum about the results (to be released at the end of the month) of the "classification and compensation study," the budget increases might hold some clue.

For starters: The class & comp study is an effort by the city to ensure employees are being paid fairly. They city is paying an outside firm to analyze comparable employers and determine whether Tacoma is paying a fair amount for the same positions. Tacoma will then make adjustments based on those findings (provided that they find no objections with the comparables).

So, for example, if the study finds that maintenance workers at the City of Tacoma are paid 60 percent the amount their counterparts at a comparable place, then they'll get a raise.

The goal is not to have the highest-paid employees in the land. In fact, the city, at last check, was aiming for 70 percent of the range. Instead, Eric Anderson has described the survey – and subsequent wage adjustments – as a way to attract and retain talented city employees.

It will also, however, add an unknown amount to city budgets in the 2009-2010 biennium, which will be a tight budgetary cycle. (So tight, in fact, that they'll likely patch the difference between tax revenues and expenses with reserves.)

Today's proposed utility budgets were the first peak I've had at how much the increase might be. That said, no one's saying every city employee is standing to get a 17 percent raise: Because they don't know what the study will say, they're penciling in a guess.

I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, any guesses on what business or government entities constitute "comparables"?

The county council wants a report by January 2010. I suspect they will be very interested to see how Pierce County's elections work. We're using IRV, aka Ranked Choice Voting, this general election, just for the countywide elections.

Contact: Bob Ferguson 206-296-1001/Dow Constantine 206-296-1008

County Council approves study of Instant Runoff Voting

Study recommended by Charter Review Commission

The Metropolitan King County Council approved legislation adopting a recommendation from the King County Charter Review Commission to study instant runoff voting (also known as ranked choice voting). The legislation adopted by the Council on October 6 requests that a written report documenting the advantages and disadvantages of instant runoff voting be presented to the council no later than January 2, 2010.

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You just knew with an open seat that the 25th Legislative District race between Republican Bruce Dammeier and Democrat Rob Cerqui would get nasty.

After all, state Rep. Joyce McDonald, R-Puyallup, is running for the County Council, leaving her House seat wide open. The 25th is a swing district. And both parties are plowing lots of money into the race.

This one could easily top $300,000 combined spending. For 1 of 98 House seats.

Republicans want to hold onto one of the few seats they still have. (OK, they have 35, but Democrats have 63.)

The House Democratic Campaign Committee today filed a complaint with the state Public Disclosure Commission, saying it's not fair that Dammeier can print up mailers and brochures so cheaply. He is part owner of NW Print, which is pretty handy if you're running for office.

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Gov. Chris Gregoire, who is now famous for saying, "We do not have a deficit today," is making sure that statement is true by ordering her budget office and state agencies to make further cuts to their spending.

Gregoire says her directive will result in $330 million in spending cuts for the second year of the two-year state budget cycle. That, in turn, will allow the state to finish the biennium with $850 million in the bank -- about $440 million in savings and $410 million in checking.

As for the projected $3.2 billion deficit for the next biennium, 2009-11, the guv says the cuts she's ordering up now will translate into $605 million in reduced spending in 2009-11.

She claims the projected deficit will be cut in half, if you count (i.e. spend) the entire rainy day savings account. My math may be bad, but I count $712 million in savings and $605 million in cuts for a total of $1.32 billion. I think that leaves a projected deficit of $1.9 billion.

If I did it wrong, I'm sure the governor's budget director, Victor Moore, or deputy budget director, Wolfgang Opitz, will call me on it to correct me.

UPDATE: Sure 'nuff. Got a call from the Guv's budget office. Seems I should have subtracted the $330 million in cuts twice, sortof. According to Glenn Kuper, budget office spokesman, I'm supposed to add the $330 million cuts in this budget cycle to the $605 million in cuts from 2009-11, plus the $712 million in savings for a grand total of $1.6 billion. Subtract that from $3.2 billion and you cut the projected deficit in half.

Of course, none of this would have been necessary if Moore hadn't stopped putting out his 6-year outlook. But I'm sure that will resume, sometime around Nov. 5.

UPDATE No. 2: This just in from Dino Rossi:
“The incumbent cannot honestly claim that she has cut the size of the deficit in half. And I believe the Rainy Day Fund should only be used as a last resort, not to pay for unsustainable spending over the last four years. Christine Gregoire may grab headlines with today’s announcement, but we are still facing a very real and very serious budget deficit. We will not be able to put our state on a fiscally sustainable course until we address the root cause of our budgetary problems and bring spending in line with revenue."

Here are details of the governor's budget cuts.

Looks like the Guv is telling most agencies to cut spending by an additional 1 percent and spend federal money first. The state prison system is exempt because the state is trying to open a larger prison at Coyote Ridge and add room for about 2,400 inmates. Personally, I don't think they'll make it, but we'll find out in mid-December when the governor's budget proposal comes out.

Below are the news releases from Gregoire's budget office and from Rossi's campaign.

Gov. Gregoire announces plans for $330 million in budget savings

Actions will increase surplus to more than $850 million

OLYMPIA – Gov. Chris Gregoire today announced actions that will save $330 million in the current budget, increasing the budget surplus for the biennium that ends June 30, 2009, to more than $850 million.

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Lori Sotelo, chairwoman of the King County Republican Party (aka GOP Party), sent out this invitation to hear Attorney General Rob McKenna speak.

Dear Joe Turner,

On October 14th at 6pm, the King County Republican Party will kick-off the Chairman’s Circle with our inaugural event at the Arctic Club Hotel in Seattle.

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Dave Ammons, spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed, says we have 3,515,393 registered voters now and that number is climbing as state and county election officials process registrations.

We would have had a lot more voters if they hadn't purged felony offenders and dead people from the rolls.

Brand-new voters have until Oct. 20 to register for the Nov. 4 general election, so our record is likely to get even higher.

You know what this means, dontcha? If we have a really big turnout, professional initiative promoter Tim Eyman will have to collect more signatures to validate his next ballot measure.

The number of signatures required for initiatives and refereda is based on how many people vote for governor in the general election every four years. Right now, it's 224,880 for initiatives and half that number for referenda. It's 8 percent and 4 percent of number of people who vote in governor's race.

Washington breaks voter registration record

OLYMPIA – Washington has just set a new record for voter registrations, topping the 3.5 million figure set in the hotly competitive 2004 election year.

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