Just 26 days will remain before the fiscal year budget expires. The last thing this state needs is string of slap-dash emergency budgets while the wrangling goes on. There is no excuse for failing to pass a budget within the first week of this special session. But legislators have yet to agree on what sort of primary it will be. The obstructionist in chief on this issue has been Republican House Co-Speaker Clyde Ballard of East Wenatchee.
Transportation is a huge item of unfinished business.
But the House has been poised upon the horns of dual dilemmas. Republicans are loath to vote for a tax increase, which such ambitious spending would require. School accountability also is on the legislative to-do list. Education reform legislation has created methods to hold students and teachers accountable for increased academic performance. The last but crucial link is what to do about schools that fail to make the grade.