Tagged: state budget cuts

Hundreds of high school students are rallying at the University of Washington in protest of cuts to education. They walked out of their classrooms this afternoon and marched or rode buses to the University District. 

Students from at least five high schools, including Ingraham and Nathan Hale - and even a few students from Tacoma - have banded together for the protest. 

There's relatively good news on King County’s budget for 2012: In a big change from recent years, Executive Dow Constantine is proposing no cuts to services. 

Constantine says though it is “surrounded by seas of red ink,” King County is “an island of relative stability” after several years of budget cuts and streamlining.

Seattle Public Schools will shut down for a day just before school starts this fall. It will also close early on a later date during the school year.

Lesley Rogers, chief communications officer for Seattle Public Schools, says asking most of its staff to be gone on the same day sends a message to the state.

With the loss of revenue, the impact of inflation and rising population, Washington’s government is providing one-fifth (18 percent) fewer services.

That’s instruction in K-12, colleges and universities, road maintenance, health and welfare agents, building inspectors – you name it.

By the time this economic decline in government services gets ironed out, Washington could shed up to 20,000 government jobs statewide, says Seattle economist Dick Conway, who is also co-publisher of the Puget Sound Economic Forecaster.

A gigantic bridge-shaped piñata spewed more than four hundred pounds of candy last night in south Seattle. It was part of the Cinco de Mayo celebration going on in the city's South Park neighborhood. 

Earlier in the day, officials broke ground on a new $130-million-dollar bridge that's going to re-connect that community to major highways.

Teachers and other public school employees in Washington could face a 3% pay cut. That’s one of the key cost-saving measures contained in the State Senate’s two-year budget proposal. It was unveiled late Tuesday.

More than 3,100 Washington students might not get into the state’s largest universities in the next couple of years. Hundreds of faculty and staff could lose their jobs. That’s what university presidents say will happen if the legislature slashes higher education funding beyond what the governor has already proposed.