Having been postponed from its normal December date due to the special session at the end of last year to address the state’s revenues shortfall, the annual legislative breakfast with local state representatives and senators was held on January 5th. All but one of the county’s contingents were present for the discussion, which was hosted by the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, Identity Clark County and the Columbia River Economic Development Council.
The session hadn’t convened, so comments were restricted to what each saw as priorities. While there were some constant themes, among them there were widely varying comments as to how those priorities should be addressed.
As with any session, there are a number of initiatives that have a direct effect on the business community. Here’s a quick look at some of them and where the legislators stand:
Streamline the permit process
One of the recurring requests from local builders, contractors and developers over the last few sessions, is to streamline the process for permitting. Locally, the cities and Clark County have used the recessionary slowdown to revamp their systems and are getting improved marks for their process. However, what continues to slow progress is when state and federal agencies are in the mix with multiple agencies not agreeing on the needs or the timeframe of the permit.
Senator Craig Pridemore stated directly at the legislative breakfast that he was aware of the complaints and is assigned to a Senate committee that will be looking at the issue this session. To date, we don’t see any legislation filed to address this issue but do anticipate something based on the senator’s comment.
Representative Ed Orcutt, whose district has been redrawn for future elections, is also on the bandwagon of curtailing or eliminating some of the regulation that impedes business growth and development. Orcutt is again pushing legislation he sponsored in the last regular session (HB 1156 to restrict the addition of “rule making” positions and HB 1162 to address natural resource management). HB 1162 specifically looks at the redundancy among agencies regulating the same issue and would assign that regulation to only one of them. A single agency with responsibility would clearly help to cut down on the amount of time required to have those reviews completed.
Temporary sales tax hike
One proposal on the agenda made by Governor Gregoire is to raise the sales tax temporarily by .005 (a proposal which will undoubtedly go to the voters in the fall), raising approximately $500 million per year, as a means to address the state’s revenue shortfall.
There was bi-partisan agreement that a sales tax would not likely get passed by the voters and that other options needed to be considered. Certainly, in our region where shoppers routinely shop tax-free across the Columbia River, we don’t need any additional motivation to send that trade out of the county.
TIF and cost of power
Representative Tim Probst shared his legislative priorities at the breakfast as being centered on education and business initiatives. Among his business priorities were Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to aid in the development of new projects, and working to stabilize electricity costs – a key component to many of our major employers. It is imperative our legislators recognize that when recruiting new businesses to our state, we compete with other regions offering these companies a variety of incentives. In most cases, the state of Washington has few incentives by comparison. These two issues – cost of power and TIF as a financing tool – would go great lengths in making the state, and therefore Southwest Washington, much more competitive.
As the session continues, other business-focused legislation will certainly be introduced. It behooves all of us to pay particular attention to this year’s session and to let our representatives know the consequences to our businesses when legislation is introduced affecting our business community.
