Gov. Bob Ferguson delivers his inaugural address after being sworn in on Jan. 15, 2025, at the Washington state Capitol in Olympia, Wash. (Photo by Ryan Berry/Washington State Standard)
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson wants to slash government spending by 6%. He calculates this will save roughly $1.8 billion in the next two-year state budget and erase about a third of a projected shortfall during that time.
Now, as he nears the end of his first month in office, we’re getting a better idea of what this means in dollars and cents.
Leaders of affected agencies were given a reduction target, instructed to come up with ways to achieve it, and to submit those proposals to Ferguson by Feb. 6.
He’s not made those cost-cutting ideas public yet. Ferguson is expected later this month to reveal which of them he’d like state lawmakers to incorporate into the budgets they’ll be releasing in late March or early April.
The Office of Financial Management did provide The Standard with the reduction targets the governor’s office gave to agencies.
Amounts vary based on a department’s size and reliance on the general fund to operate.
For instance, the Commission on African American Affairs, one of the smallest agencies, needs to trim $69,000 while the Department of Social and Health Services, one of the largest, must figure out ways to cut $720 million.
Ferguson isn’t immune. The governor’s office got a reduction target of $3.3 million.
By the numbers
The table below shows how much the governor’s office has asked the state’s larger departments to cut.
This next table shows dollar amount targets for the 3% cuts the governor would like to see at state colleges and universities.
Ferguson backs Inslee’s cuts
On Jan. 24, K.D. Chapman-See, director of the governor’s budget office, sent a letter to agency leaders, statewide elected officials and presidents of higher education institutions detailing the governor’s spending reduction directive and setting the Feb. 6 deadline.
“While these reductions will undoubtedly be challenging, Governor Ferguson knows agency leaders, budget officers and state employees are best positioned to understand how they can reduce spending in their agencies while continuing to best meet the needs of their customers and clients,” Chapman-See wrote.
Nearly every agency is engaged in this exercise. Departments run by other elected statewide executives, like the Office of the Attorney General and the Department of Natural Resources, received target amounts to cut as well though they were not required to submit information to Ferguson.
There are zeros in the chart for the Washington State Patrol, the state Department of Corrections, and the Criminal Justice Training Commission, as public safety agencies are exempt from the spending reduction edict.
There is also no line item for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, as the governor has said he wants to increase spending for education.
However, public safety and public schools could still face reductions under Ferguson because he’s repeatedly said — including in the memo — that his across-the-board cuts are intended to be on top of the $2 billion in savings former Gov. Jay Inslee wrote into his last budget proposal.
In education, for example, Inslee proposed pausing bonuses that teachers receive if they’ve gotten certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. It saves $151 million. Ferguson has not publicly opposed this move.
Nor has he said he disagrees with closing the Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women, a minimum-security prison in Belfair, south of Bremerton, and shuttering residential habilitation centers at Rainier School and Yakima Valley School by 2027 that provide care for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. All three closures were in Inslee’s budget.