For freshman Sen. Joe Fain (R-Auburn, representing the 47th District, including Kent), Olympia has been all about a learning curve.<\/p>\n
As the ranking minority member on the Senate Transportation Committee and a member of the Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee, that\u2019s not to imply he\u2019s been sitting around, though.<\/p>\n
Not by a long shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a tremendous amount of work to take the time to make sure I\u2019m being effective,\u201d said Fain, who starts most of his work days at 7 a.m., and goes home by 10:30 or 11 p.m. each night.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get exposed to a tremendous amount of information and a great number of opinions and views.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fain is putting his aggressive mode of seeking information and relationship-building to the test, \u2013 especially now that so much of it pertains to trimming programs, so that a balanced budget can be crafted.<\/p>\n
Fain calls his ranking-minority member status on the Transportation Committee \u201ca great position because it allows me to be in the room with the ranking majority leader and vice chairperson through the budget-development process.\u201d<\/p>\n
In keeping with a promise he made earlier during his campaign, Fain is asking for an in-depth look at the state\u2019s transportation departments, including more reports, charts and graphs to absorb. By fully understanding how the state\u2019s various transportation agencies work, he said, that is the most informed and responsible way that inevitable cutbacks can be made, and programs saved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel the budget process in the past has been as responsive to individual outputs,\u201d Fain said. \u201cBy digging deeper, I\u2019m hoping we\u2019ll be better-equipped to make decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes the process longer; it makes the hours move more slowly, but that is precisely the type of work the public sent me here to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fain also has directed his staff to revisit the results of a survey that the Republican caucus undertook.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral months ago, a call went out from the Senate Republican caucus, asking \u2018what can we do to make your jobs more efficient?\u2019\u201d Fain said. \u201cIt turned out we had about 400 recommendations. I directed staff to go through them. Our state employees are on the ground, and they have a view of where these public deficiencies are. I want to hear when they had a good experience with the state, and a bad experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea, Fain added, was to let state employees show legislators how and where things can be improved – especially as it pertains to often-costly state transportation issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI recognize there are probably a great number of transportation employees,\u201d Fain said of the respondents. \u201cI didn\u2019t want that great institutional knowledge to go to waste.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fain noted the education committee also has its work cut out for it, given the economy and the dependence of Washington\u2019s school districts on state funding resources. But he\u2019s sensing a real move afoot by legislators on both sides of the aisle who are determined not to do business in the same old way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just see a very reform-minded block of elected officials emerging who are less inclined to do business as usual,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cthere have been some interesting proposals brought up that are moving through the (bill) process that might empower the local districts, allowing more flexibility with their funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fain said a key element to local schools is levy-equalization funding – the state\u2019s formula for shoring up the difference between school districts in areas where property values are high, and in others where the property assessments are lower.<\/p>\n
Calling the state\u2019s current levy-equalization formula \u201carchaic,\u201d Fain said it\u2019s nonetheless a critical means in keeping local school districts here on pace with districts in the state\u2019s more affluent areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the short run I\u2019m very opposed to allowing those …dollars to dry up because our schools are dependent on those dollars,\u201d Fain said. \u201cNo kid get his fourth-grade year back and I don\u2019t want to use the economy as an excuse for why we don\u2019t fund K-4 education.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
YOUR VOICE IN OLYMPIA<\/p>\n
State Sen. Joe Fain<\/p>\n
P.O. Box 40447, Olympia, WA 98504-0447<\/p>\n
Olympia phone: (360) 786-7692<\/p>\n
E-mail: joe.fain@leg.wa.gov<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For freshman Sen. Joe Fain (R-Auburn, representing the 47th District), Olympia has been all about a learning curve.
\nAs the ranking minority member on the Senate Transportation Committee and a member of the Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee, that\u2019s not to imply he\u2019s been sitting around, though.
\nNot by a long shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":16541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16540"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}