OLYMPIA…Sen. John Braun today proposed a way for lawmakers to answer school-funding concerns while protecting taxpayers against big increases in local school levies. Senate Bill 6021, introduced with less than six full days left in this year’s 105-day session, is being offered as an alternative to two measures still in...

OLYMPIA…Less than two years after legislators brought Washington’s school-funding approach into the 21st century by rebalancing state and local school-levy rates, Democrat members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee are supporting a return to higher local school taxes. Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia and an architect of the landmark education-funding...

OLYMPIA…Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia and budget leader for the Senate Republican Caucus, said this about the 2019-21 state operating budget proposed today by the Senate majority: “The Legislature is well-positioned this year to pass a budget that would support major new investments in bipartisan priorities, like special education and mental-health...

OLYMPIA…Sen. John Braun’s proposed $500 million investment in mental-health treatment capacity is now embedded in the 2019-21 capital budget proposed Wednesday in the Senate. Braun said the capital budget’s authors are looking to put the unprecedented infusion of funding toward a new teaching hospital at the University of Washington, to...

OLYMPIA…The first state revenue forecast for 2019, adopted today, continues a streak of good financial news for lawmakers, with an additional $860 million anticipated to come in over the next two budget cycles: $307 million more for the remainder of the 2017-19 fiscal biennium, which ends June 30, and another...

  OLYMPIA…The state Senate today gave overwhelming support to a pair of bills intended to improve the delivery of special-education services in Washington’s public schools. Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, is the prime sponsor of one of those measures: Senate Bill 5532, which focuses on policy changes to support families and...

OLYMPIA…Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, said he is dismayed by new legislation that would again delay long-standing efforts to reduce K-3 class sizes. Braun, an architect of the landmark education-funding updates enacted in 2017, had cautioned against the same move in 2018: “Research shows that smaller class sizes in grades K-3...

OLYMPIA…Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia and an architect of the landmark education-funding updates enacted in 2017, raised concerns about the future of those reforms following a vote today in the Senate committee on K-12 education. A majority of the committee members approved Senate Bill 5313, which would allow property-tax hikes by...

OLYMPIA…Legislation introduced today would require all three branches of state government to track and submit data regarding sexual harassment of employees for detailed annual reports that would be public. Sen. John Braun and Sen. Ann Rivers come at Senate Bill 5845 from different directions but are sponsoring it with the...