Frustration boils up after Ferguson vetoes two tiny grants in WA budget
A week after Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson signed a nearly $80 billion budget, questions remain as to why he vetoed two grants that amounted to a molecule of the spending plan.
Ferguson and Democratic lawmakers slashed millions of dollars from child care and education and siphoned hundreds of millions from emergency reserves to overcome a projected $2.3 billion shortfall and balance the budget that runs through mid-2027.
He agreed with those big-ticket pieces of a deal hammered out by Democratic budget writers and approved by the party’s majorities in the House and Senate. Ferguson, a Democrat in his second year, didn’t mess with much else in the 623-page document that he signed April 1.
That’s why his decisions to veto $300,000 for the Prime Time Family Reading Program and $500,000 for an organized retail crime enforcement effort baffled the intended recipients of those funds. Savings from those cuts amount to roughly 0.001% of the budget.
https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/04/09/frustration-boils-up-after-ferguson-vetoes-two-tiny-grants-in-wa-budget/