Nora Gibson, in a photo from her website.

For this week’s Q&A, I spoke with Nora Gibson, executive director of Full Life Care, a nonprofit that provides home care services, operate small boarding homes and has five adult day health centers across King and Snohomish Counties. She estimates her nonprofit serves approximately 1,600 people.

Gibson is in favor of Initiative 1163, which would restore a training requirement for home healthcare workers.

Q: First, what does this initiative do from your perspective?

Gibson: This initiative is really an attempt to restore the components of initiative 1029 that was really focused on training and improving the quality of the long term care workforce. That initiative passed overwhelmingly in 2008 but over the last several budget years has been systematically dismantled. So 1163 attempts to go back to the people to talk about the importance of a high-quality workforce in what I will call community based long-term care. Again, trying to make sure that people get background checks , set a minimum basic training standard that would be equivalent to what you get working inside a nursing home, and lots of kind of accountability measures built into this particular initiative.

The bottom line is something I’ve observed since the 1980s, is most long term care is now provided outside of institutional settings – in adult family homes, boarding homes, and by home care workers all across the state. And they receive only a minimum amount of training – I think right now it’s 32 hours. And that’s it.

You can hire independently on your own a homecare worker and they can have a certification but the only training they’ve received is this 32 hours. (more…)

Tags: elections, home healthcare, Initiatie 1163, SEIU

Brad Shannon at The Olympian has a great story up today about what will happen if Congress fails to sort things out over the next few days. In short, the state treasurer says the state has cash reserves to last up to two months. Read it all here.

Tags: Congress, debt, state treasurer

In preparation for tomorrow’s show The Impact, host Jessica Gao just interviewed Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt and Senate Majority Caucus Leader Karen Fraser.

With the session set to kick off next Monday the thing on everyone’s mind is the budget.  Both caucuses are busy trying to figure out how to balance the books with a $4.6 billion shortfall and with what legislators are referring to as  a resounding message from voters last November: no new taxes.

“The voters have spoken,” said Hewitt, R-Walla Walla. “It is a bit schizophrenic to be here these days. They want services but don’t want to pay for them.”

One of those services is Washington’s transportation infrastructure. When asked about the possibility of sending a tax package to the voters in order to fund it both Senators were reluctant to commit to any one idea. Both agreed though, on the importance of the state’s transportation system and its direct link to the economy.

Fraser, D-Olympia, added that there has been talk of exploring traditional sources of revenue for projects like gas tax and tolls as well as new measures.

To watch the entire interview tune into The Impact tomorrow evening at 7 or 10 p.m. on TVW.

Tags: Budget, The Impact, transportation

Bad news: In February, Washington’s unemployment rate jumped from 7.8 percent to 8.4 percent.

According to the Employment Security Department, the state lost 28,200 non-agricultural jobs.

Even worse: Washington has lost more jobs than the national average: “Year over year, Washington had 97,100 fewer jobs last month than in February 2008, a 3.3 percent decrease. Nationally, employment declined by 3 percent from a year ago,” according to the press release.

Part of that, of course, may be that the state was doing relatively well until recently: Just last spring, Gov. Chris Gregoire said that Washington’s unemployment rate — at 4.4 percent at the time — was the lowest in state history. (Thanks to AP for the stats!)

For all our coverage of unemployment, go here.

Update: The Oregonian reports that Oregon’s jobless rate is at 10.8 percent.

Tags: unemployment

The Senate managed to do what didn’t work out on Saturday: Pass both the bill bringing the state into conformity with federal laws and a bill to create a worker training program.

The conformity bill addresses the way employers are charged for their unemployment insurance versus how unemployed workers are paid: The employees receive benefits based on the highest two wage periods in the last year, while employers are charged at the four-period average. Changing that was necessary: The Federal Government gave Washington a deadline to get into conformity or lose funding.

The retraining bill is a program to retrain workers who are leaving low-demand careers. The program would allow those enrolled to receive unemployment benefits while they attend qualifying retraining programs for high-demand careers, like healthcare.

The previous bill would have diverted money from the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, but that was ruled an effective tax increase under I-960, the voter-approved initiative that requires lawmakers to pass tax increases with a two-thirds vote or send them to the public for a vote.

The compromise retraining program will come from existing funds from the Employment Security Department and the Federal Workforce Investment Act.

For all our coverage on unemployment, check here.

Tags: unemployment

The Senate just voted to increase the debt limit of the Housing Finance Commission to $7 billion, from $5 billion.

Every state has a Housing Finance Commission — as you’ll find in the bill report linked above. They’re federally sanctioned government bodies that issue bonds and participate in affordable housing programs, with the goal of helping more people afford housing.

The debt limit was at $4.5 billion, but they raised it to $5 billion in 2007. This $2 billion jump is the largest since the Commission’s inception.

In testimony, those in favor of the bill said it would create 8,500 jobs, allow 12,000 people to become new homeowners and not put the state at risk.

The downside? Sen. Mark Schoesler and others said it could put the state at risk, and that loaning money for down payments wasn’t good policy.

The Senate passed the bill 37-10.

Tags: Budget, Housing Commission

I talked to Mark Veradian at the Employment Security Department this week. My question: Republicans have said that the unemployment trust fund is among the largest in the nation — at $4.1 billion — because they say the tax rate for employers is too high. So, how high is it?

Mark says, “It is difficult to compare Washington’s unemployment tax with other states, as taxing systems vary dramatically. The health of our trust fund is a combination of factors, and the rate is only a very small piece of that. A big part of the health of our trust fund has to do with our taxable wage base (the salary point at which we stop collecting taxes on an individual worker), the relatively high wages in the state compared to others, and the fact that $4 billion collects considerable interest.

“The U.S. Department of Labor uses the average tax rate as a percentage of total wages as one measure to compare states UI taxing systems. As of last year, Washington was tied for 5th using this measure. However, Michigan was ranked 4th, and their trust fund has been depleted. This illustrates why this measure isn’t particularly useful in describing the relative health of a state’s trust fund.”

OK. So, now that the House and Senate have passed the increase in unemployment benefits and the extra 13-week emergency benefits have kicked in, how will that affect the trust fund balance? (more…)

Tags: unemployment

The Senate passed a bill by 43-4 to increase unemployment benefits temporarily by $45 per week, increase the minimum to $155 (from $129) per week and increase the training fund permanently. The bill now heads back to the House (they’ve already approved the bill but not the amendment added today. It will go into effect May 3.

Here is where you can read what you need to know about the bill if you’re unemployed.

Here is where you can figure out how the increased benefit will affect the balance of the unemployment trust fund.

And here (and here) you can read testimony from the debate.

Tags: Add new tag, unemployment

Sen. Janea Holmquist offered an amendment to socialize the cost of raising the minimum weekly payment from $129 to $155.

What does that mean?

Normally, employers are charged based on a formula that takes into account how likely they are to lay people off and the rate that those employees are paid (among other things). Because the agriculture sector in this state employs a large number of seasonal workers who may depend on unemployment benefits on off seasons, if you increase the pay out amount for workers in that sector, agricultural employer rates would go up.

Holmquist’s bill would “socialize” that cost, meaning it wouldn’t be directly paid by that industry. The amendment passed without opposition.

Tags: unemployment

Van Jones, who is testifying in the Senate Environment, Water and Energy Committee now, said he was happy to be in Washington, a state that’s leading the way on “green” issues.

Jones is the founder and president of Green for All, a national organization that works to put low-income people to work on green jobs.

“Literally everything that is good for the environment is a job,” he said. “Solar panels don’t install themselves.”

Jones says that in a green economy, “the math is different. You don’t just count what you spend, you count what you save.”

“You are in a unique situation very rare in American history. This is one of those moments, like the civil war, like the New Deal, like the 60s — civil rights and women’s rights — literally in that era, when our grandkids are going to study what you did,” he said.

“This assembly will be studied. Now, the question is, are we going to do something truly transformative? Are we going to turn this breakdown into a breakthrough?”

He said the way to do that is to use green jobs as a springboard into a new economy.

Tags: economy, Environment, Van Jones