What do you think is the criteria that Mitch
uses to post an outtake? Whatever embarrasses
me the most, most of the time. That's what I
think. I think he saves some of those. He makes
some of those. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
It's excellent. It's hilarious. It was embarrassing.
Welcome to County Connection. the official podcast
of the Washington State Association of Counties,
where we dive into the legislative issues shaping
the future of our communities. From budgets to
public safety, infrastructure to elections, we'll
break down what's happening in Olympia and how
it impacts counties from across the Evergreen
State. Stay informed, stay engaged, and join
us as we amplify the voice of Washington's 39
counties. Welcome back, everybody, to the County
Connection podcast. I'm Paul Jewell, your host
and government relations director for the Washington
State Association of Counties. Today is April
9th. It's the day after the opposite house fiscal
cutoff. It's a big day. I keep saying that it's
a big day here in the legislative session in
Olympia. But these milestones are really important
as we, you know. talk about what's happening
legislatively and we're watching different policies
be considered during the legislative session.
Jamie Bodden with the Washington State Association
of Local Public Health Officials back in the
studio. On a beautiful afternoon, right after
cutoff. Happy cutoff, Jamie. Paul, I want to
wish you the happiest of cutoffs. That is the
nicest thing anybody has said to me today. Aw.
Thank you, Jamie. That's what I do. I appreciate
it. So you're pretty happy. You must have been
looking forward to cutoff, too. It's always a
great day when you get to just mark a bunch of
other things dead and clean up the lists a little
bit more. get a couple bills off the radar. I
cleaned up my lists today. Days get a little
bit sunnier, get a little bit longer. Just because
that load just gets lifted, it just gets a little
bit lighter. So what are you paying attention
to now that we've been through? All the cutoffs
that we've been through, right? We started all
the way back on January 13th. We've been through
the House of Origin cutoffs. We've been through
the opposite house cutoffs, at least two of them.
We're looking forward to another cutoff next
week. That's the opposite house floor cutoff
on the 16th. Budgets are out of their committees.
They're in conference or being negotiated. What
are you watching from a public health perspective?
So our focus is getting the last final bills
that we want across the finish line across the
finish. line, so making that floor cut off. So
everything is out of our committees that we need
to. They're in rules or they've been pulled from
rules already. So they're just kind of waiting
that floor vote. So is that your child fatality
bill that we talked about before? That would
be our child fatality bill, yep, 5163. We're
really excited. Our Group B water systems bill,
1947, has already passed off the Senate floor.
So it is in the governor's hands awaiting his
signature, which is really exciting. So that
one went fast and furious. So we're waiting for
child fatalities to see what happens with that
one and just kind of looking forward to getting
that one across the finish line this year. And
then the other thing is we're just focused on
budget. It's the time of year where budget writers
and the chambers are focusing on passing what
they need to pass off the floors so that they
can turn their attention big time to the budget.
Any little crumbs of intel they're willing to
share about budget is kind of like gold right
now where you kind of take it and think through,
okay, if they're talking, you know, X for budget,
that means this bill needs to pass. And, you
know, they might need to tweak the bill this
way with a couple of different amendments. Every
lobbyist is scrubbing the floors of the legislative
building right now looking for any clue. Information
is. Absolutely. a very important currency right
now. Yeah, it's a huge currency right now. And,
you know, this is the time of year where things
kind of quiet down because they're not in committees
anymore for the most part. Everything's really
happening on the floor and the budget negotiations
are going on as we speak. but they're usually
pretty tight lipped. They hold that stuff really
close to the vest. And if you can get a really
good piece of intel that's actually legitimate
and actionable, you're everybody's best friend
suddenly, at least for a very short period of
time up there at the ledge building. What are
you hearing as far as rumors go with regard to
the budgets moving forward? Well, I, you know.
We haven't heard a whole lot. I know Democrats,
Democratic leadership had a media availability
today that I wasn't able to tune into. So I need
to watch that because I know they always give
a little bit of nuggets of information there.
But given Governor Ferguson's press release in
his response to the budgets, was it last week?
I think it was last week. different budgets.
He wasn't satisfied with what the House or the
Senate proposed. Well, you know, he really came
out strong against the financial intangibles
tax, right? What's also being called the wealth
tax basically said he doesn't think it's defensible
or he doesn't think it has a really strong. argument
for defense is concerned that if the budgets
were based on a substantial amount of revenue
from that tax, that they wouldn't be sustainable.
And therefore, he was giving a strong signal.
He wasn't just giving a clue. He came out and
said, if I get a budget that includes that as
the basis for a revenue stream, I will veto it.
And interestingly enough, both the House and
the Senate have financial intangible tax proposals
on the table. Are you hearing anything specific
about those, especially as a result of that press
conference and what the governor said? Nothing
specific, but one can probably infer. I have.
that a big... You've inferred? No. Or have you?
I've heard something specific. Nice. But you
can assume that that's off the table in a meaningful
way and that they're going to go back to the
drawing board and those budgets are going to
look really different. We have heard that state
agencies have been asked to propose more reductions.
Yeah, I've heard that too. And so they went through
that budget exercise with... With then -Governor
Inslee, they did it again with Ferguson. They're
going to be doing it again. So those state agencies
that are more GFS heavy, because GFS isn't spread
equally amongst the state agencies. And by GFS,
you mean? I mean general fund state. And by general
fund state, you mean? I mean the flexible state
dollars. That's right. In their general fund.
So these are the state dollars that they have
the most flexibility to use. So if you're a county,
it's like your general fund dollars. Yep. So
those state agencies. are going to be taking
big hits. There's just no way around that. Those
that have more secure funding from alternative
sources are definitely going to be in a better
position than those who are really dependent
on that general fund state revenue. So I kind
of hinted that I'd heard something more about
the financial intangibles tax. You didn't take
the bait on that. What would you like to tell
our listeners? Thank you. I mean, we just talked
about how these little nuggets of information
are currency. There we go. So here's what I've
heard from pretty good authority. And it was
actually kind of - Do you want to cite your source?
No, I'm not going to cite my source. But if you
listen to the opening of the - press conference
today with the majority party. Some questions
were asked about this and they hint at it. They
don't tell you what I'm about to tell you, but
they do hint at it. So my intelligence suggests
and tells me that they are planning to pass that
tax. But here's the but. They're not going to
base the budgets on any revenue that they get
from it. So they do want to push the policy forward,
and I think they want to test it. They want to
put the tax in place and see what happens. But
they're not going to base their budgets on it,
so they're going to try to avoid the whole governor's
veto from his position, which was. I will veto
this if it moves forward as a basis for the budget.
So I think they're threading a little bit of
a needle here, hoping that the governor might
not veto it, given that the budget's not based
on it. But they, at this point, are still moving
forward with the intent. Now, there are two different
versions in the House and the Senate. And in
some ways, they have some similarities. In other
ways, they're very, very different. So they still
have to come together on what version. I've heard
from at least one really, really valid source
on one side that that is there. Who is? I will
not say. Just checking. But. His lips are sealed.
Yeah. But I think that's really interesting.
Yeah. And I think that's. Certainly will make
for an interesting supplemental session next
year. And a little unexpected, right? I think
a lot of people like you did expected that when
the governor came out that forceful that they
would back away. And they are in some regards
because they're not going to book the revenue,
so to speak, but they're still going to pass
the policy. Yeah. I like the idea of let's pass
it. Let's test it out. Let's get the legalities
out of the way before we. commit the funding
and then have to do a take back of some sort
yeah i think that's if they can get all of that
then it's like all right we have some some new
revenue to um incorporate into into the budget
and that might be um an interesting interesting
next biennium if they can get all that through
in the next year or two. Now, only time will
tell, right? Only in the next couple of weeks
will tell whether that little nugget of currency
that I just traded in was actually worth anything.
But that's the latest information that I have.
What would you like to trade it in for? Just
popularity. That's what we already discussed.
It makes you really popular. Paul wants to be
popular. Always. I mean, that's always been my
goal. Can't you tell? Session homecoming king,
Paul Jewel. Just by the way I dress, for goodness
sakes. I mean, everybody can tell. Look at this
tie today. It is a lovely tie. It's a nice one.
It's a very nice tie. It's very Denver Broncos
colors. Oh, you stop it right there. Is that
orange and blue? It is orange and blue, but that
was never my intent. Now you're never going to
wear it again. Now I'm feeling bad about this
tie. It's also very spring. Sorry, Seahawks fans
out there. It is very spring, however. Well,
what are you watching from a public health perspective
when you're looking at the budget? And the reason
I bring that up, I know there's a lot of... complicated
things happening now with public health. You
on Monday just gave an update to members in our
virtual series, our virtual assembly series,
which I know our members are familiar with because
we've been doing them since the pandemic. You
gave an update on what's been going on with federal
funding, right? And some of the cuts that we're
seeing coming down from the federal government.
And there's more coming. Seattle Times was reporting
about... new ones today, not necessarily public
health related ones, but new cuts. But that's
a big deal for you. And that's been a big deal
in the past during fiscal. difficulties during
fiscal, you know, challenging fiscal periods,
public health has often taken the brunt of cuts.
We haven't really seen that at the state level.
There's some reductions, right, to FPHS or foundational
public health services. But you've got these,
you know, these federal ones creeping in now,
right? And there's threats for more around Medicare.
Is that going to affect the state budget? Are
you worried about public health funding? Are
they going to, if those things happen, will they
have funds to backfill that? Or is that going
to cause problems with in the system? I mean,
what are you thinking about? Yeah, there's definitely
spheres or I guess circles of interest for us
around public health funding, if that makes sense.
So like at our very core, the one funding that
we're watching the most is foundational public
health services funding. That's really been...
Critical. I don't want to overuse foundational.
So I'm going to say critical or vital or essential
or foundational core. It's all the same thing.
All good. All good words to to our governmental
public health system and for local health jurisdictions
in particular. It's the first time where we've
had any real meaningful. additional funding come
our way for public health work. And so we've
really strengthened and built strong public health
programs with FPHS. In a pretty short period
of time. Very short period of time. Yeah. So
that's the one that we're really, really locked
in on and watching closely. And we had a good,
I think I would say positive, optimistic. um
result in the budgets around that yes there was
a little bit of a reduction there's also a little
bit of fund shifting from general fund to this
other account that we use that we in a tough
year like this it's hard to not see any sort
of reduction or shift right yeah but overall
i agree with you it looked pretty positive yeah
so so we're we're very pleased and grateful for
um for the fphs investments as they are um recognizing
that it's a tough budget year and that um Not
everything had that strong of a support. So we'd
be really grateful with our legislature with
that. Well, and right now, if we're thinking
about kind of where we're at as far as the budgets
go and where they are and how those budgets are
based on some of these new revenue proposals,
right? And the fact they haven't passed those
revenue proposals yet. There's a lot of work
to do in the next couple of weeks to get those
done. This is really the high watermark. It only
actually gets worse from here as far as revenue
that's available. So that has to make you a little
nervous too. A little bit, yeah. We're definitely
listening in on conversations. And when we hear,
oh, state agencies tighten those belts a little
bit more, that makes us a little bit concerned.
So we've done a lot of work. around communicating
and messaging out of this is what we've been
doing with FPHS. These are our successes. This
is how our communities are benefiting, the services
that they're receiving. And that continuing on
through the rest of sessions is really important
and really critical. So carrying and continuing
that message. Does it hurt us that there are
bigger things in the news right now around public
health that kind of emphasize and reinforce the
importance of that? you know thank you texas
like you know that's a you know That being in
the news constantly. All right, Jamie, tell me
what's going on in Texas. Massive measles outbreak,
not just Texas. Everywhere, right? Yeah, many,
many states. I heard Colorado has a case now.
Yeah, and measles cases in Washington too, so
not to minimize what's going on in our own state.
But just that presence of this is why public
health and the work that we do is really important,
I think helps reinforce that to budget writers.
Given the federal situation with a lot of those
cutbacks and terminations and just reducing of
that federal funding, I think, again, that reinforces
that critical importance of FPHS as that backstop.
big focus right now for budget. But if you look
farther out kind of in those spheres of public
health funding or public health areas, you know,
we're looking at related to behavioral health,
a lot of the substance use disorder things, particularly
the prevention side of that or the harm reduction
side of that, community oriented programs and
services that, you know, provide a more comprehensive
look at. Treatment and substance use disorder,
behavioral health, overdose response, all of
that. There's absolutely public health work within
that. So looking at, you know, how multifaceted
are those investments? Is it just treatment or
are there investments into that prevention community
strategies as well? You know, you mentioned measles
and if I'm not mistaken, isn't it a lot of. Don't
we spend a lot of federal money on things like
contact tracing and things like that in our programs?
Yes and no. Right now we have federal funding
through a grant that was authorized to local
health jurisdictions because of the pandemic
and COVID to help fund a lot of that disease
investigation work. Without that funding, that...
That work goes back to local governments who
have been traditionally on the hook to fund that
work. So the loss of those funds at the federal
level doesn't necessarily handicap our ability
to do that critical work around disease control.
Oh, absolutely it does. Oh, it does. Because
without that federal funding, then counties get
the balance. That work doesn't stop just because
the funding stops. You still have to respond
to those outbreaks. You've just now removed a
funding source from that equation. It is an FPHS
activity, and so a lot of jurisdictions use FPHS
to kind of braid into that. But without FPHS
and without those federal fundings, that goes
back to locals who've always been responsible
in paying for that work. Interesting. the OGs
of the unfunded mandate work for local public
health. Look at you and your pop culture talk.
I'm just so hip. I can't help it. Well, all the
young listeners out there really appreciate that.
You know, when people think of who's the hippest
from Wasak, it's probably the two of us. Thank
you for saying that. I appreciate it. I'm not
sure others would agree with you, but we're going
to go with it for today because it made me feel
good. So I appreciate it. You know, I think I'm
actually part of the first generation who really
never knew measles. because of the fact that
it was eradicated for the most part in the United
States due to vaccinations. It's interesting
that it's coming back, and it's interesting that
it's coming back right now when all of this kind
of financial upheaval is going on both at the
federal and unfortunately at the local level.
It doesn't bode well for kind of keeping measles
at bay unless we're willing to. learn the lessons
from the past really, right? And keep those investments
in place and that infrastructure in place in
public health jurisdictions, local health jurisdictions
to do that really critical work around, you know.
outbreak response and contact tracing and all
that work. I know in many offices when something
like that happens, it's almost an all hands on
deck sort of thing. Other work kind of gets set
aside while that work is going on because it's
so critical and so important to make sure that
you figure out where that came from, try to isolate
it as much as possible and prevent the spread.
Why is measles so dangerous? It's incredibly
infectious, and it has learned to live for a
long time in the air. So it can live for hours
after somebody's been in the room. So we are
in the immemorial Eric Johnson office right now.
Would you guys stop? Eric, we all know you're
alive. In fact, Eric is the OG of executive directors
here at WASAC. Props to Eric. This is not the
Eric Johnson Memorial office. Shout out to Eric.
Anyways, go ahead. Anyway, so we walked into
this office. I don't know. 10 minutes ago. 10
minutes ago. Yeah, whatever. But we don't know
who was in here, you know, two hours ago. True.
And so it could, you know, so. So someone was
in here two hours ago. Hours ago. Had measles.
Had measles. Was infectious. That could still.
Still is living in the air. Living infectious
vectors could still. Yep. Wow. And that's one
of the seriousnesses about measles is that it
thrives in a way that other. diseases don't thrive
all right jamie i can't remember when i had an
mlr vaccine last time how long does that thing
last you are probably okay okay i'm not going
to texas anytime soon so yeah you're probably
okay although i do love that barbecue there's
nothing like mesquite wood and beef delicious
Well, what else are you watching? What else are
we paying attention to now that we've kind of,
you know, I mean, we're screaming towards the
next cutoff at this point. Yeah. So other budget
things that we're looking at, just general prevention
and community health budget items. These are
things that are often very direct services or
community focused, and are often some of the
things that get cut. in tough budget times because
they're not required by law. There are no mandates
around them. They're not regulatory in nature,
but they're the things that really help our community
thrive. So thinking of things like our home visiting
programs and a lot of that funding to bolster
and strengthen home visiting programs. It looked
like there were some cuts in at least one of
the budgets. Yeah. So cuts around that. cuts
around our tobacco prevention and education work.
And so things like that where we're looking at
of like how can we absorb or pivot or are we
losing this at the state level and federal level
and just kind of, you know, being aware of the
funding landscape for these programs and services
are changing drastically. Communicating, you
know, their importance of things. And, you know,
recognizing that it's a tough budget year. And
when you have a tough budget year, you are obligated
to do certain funding, obligated to make certain
things whole and keep certain things whole. Right.
Legally obligated, literally. Exactly. And so
certain things get cut. Other things we're looking
at is, you know, Medicaid and Medicare are going
to change. Right. what that landscape looks like,
that really depends a lot on what's happening
federally. And so are we going to know that before
this final budget? Maybe, but probably not. Probably
not. And I'm not going to say it out loud because
if you say it out loud, it's going to happen.
But that might mean, you know, making some decisions
at a future date. I didn't know you were so superstitious.
I mean, it's like a Beetlejuice situation. Don't.
If you see it. Don't. Say it. It happens, and
so we're not going to. Okay. I was talking with
Brad yesterday, and we were talking about some
behavioral health stuff, and he was talking about
the same exact thing. Really, really looking
at those Medicaid dollars, wondering when that
kind of... When that news is going to come, whether
it's going to be good news, bad news, and what
level of good news or bad news that's going to
be and how that's going to affect programs, you
and he overlap a lot in regards to Medicaid.
I mean, it has a big role in public health. big
role in behavioral health, big role for just
healthcare in general, human services for sure.
And so, you know, that's going to be one probably
July where we're going to know how, you know,
is that shoe going to drop? How big, how big
of a drop, what that looks like and what adjustments
the state might need to do to address, address
what's happening at the federal level. And it's
just one where we don't know, we know something's
coming. We know something's changing and that's
about it. Yeah. That's all we know so far. Well,
Jamie, Great talking to you today. Again, it's
always really interesting to get a read on what's
happening after we hit a milestone in the legislative
session, which we just did yesterday on opposite
house cutoff. We really are moving very quickly
towards the last cutoff, which is the opposite
house floor. We also skipped another important
milestone. at the legislature. What? And that
is what I like to refer to as blossom fever.
Blossom fever. And that is when the cherry blossoms.
Well, that was last week. Start blooming and
all of the lobbyists and legislators have to
take their obligatory. cherry blossom pictures
and become influencers for a week. It's not just
the people who work here. Those trees were attracting
people from all over the place. They were like
bees to honey. They were. And it's fun to see.
It's fun to get a little bit of love out of you.
Well, talk about fun things. And as we start
moving towards kind of the last few days of the
legislative session, I was really disappointed
to see both the... State clam bills die this
year. The geoduck versus razor clam bill. both
of them vying to be the state clam. Even in testimony,
one tried to get the other to accept state bivalve
rather than state clam. This was a very serious...
You've got to love a passionate group of people
who are very passionate about a very niche topic.
And I could come up with a whole lot of plays
on words. I could come up with a whole lot of
puns right now. I'm going to clam up. I'm not
going to do that, right? Will you at least offer
a pearl of wisdom? Maybe. I might dig in a little
bit on some things, but I'm not going to get
too shellfish and take all of the airtime here.
But I wanted to just riff on something really
quickly with you because I was actually talking
about this with a personal conversation with
somebody the other day because we were kind of
talking about razor clams and how good they were.
But someone mentioned that we have this. state
marine testing facility and program for shellfish
here in Washington State. And looking into it,
it's kind of a big... It's kind of a big deal
around public health. And, you know, testing
these, you know, we were actually talking about
the upcoming razor clam digging seasons because
there's always spring seasons to dig. I know
you like to dig clams. I love to dig clams. But
they actually go out and they test these clams
like right before the season starts every single
time. And what are they looking for when they
do that? So it depends on the shellfish. So for,
you know. Let's just stick with razor clams for
fun. Well, razor clams is more of the parasites
that prevent razor clams from, that hurt the
razor clams. Okay. But like oysters, for example,
will get tested at the state public health lab
and they're looking for certain. uh bacteria
and biotoxin that are harmful for humans so not
necessarily harmful to the oysters themselves
but if we ingest them as humans we get sick so
when you say we get sick what do you mean by
i'm talking um there's a whole wide range of
things um at a minimum some you know not fun
gi stomach things more serious you know you're
getting I heard there was a paralytic thing yeah
you're getting you know more neurotoxin effects
of things. And so the warmer the water gets,
so you'll often see advisories come June, July,
August, September, really July, August of monitor
what you're eating in terms of shellfish, particularly
oysters. Not a great time of the year to eat
oysters, although I love oysters. Yeah, all year
long. I would say any time of year is a great
time to eat oysters, but you're increasing your
risk. So in warmer waters? Warmer waters. that
provide a more rich environment for those bacteria
and biotoxins to grow. So the best time to eat
oysters is colder time. December, January, February.
Really, even now. Because the water is still
pretty cold. Yep. But, you know, one of the things
that public health does, and this is where it
connects with businesses, is shellfish. I mean,
razor clamming. gooey ducks, oysters, mussels,
clams, huge economic driver in Washington State,
particularly on the sound and the coast. Big
markets, big businesses, huge export market.
And so those shellfish beds are precious. You
need to preserve the quality of those shellfish
beds. If you're closing down shellfish beds,
that is a... big economic hit to companies, to
businesses, to communities, right? You're talking
jobs, you're talking other things. And so public
health works really hard to make sure that those
shellfish beds can stay open or even expanded.
And so we do that through on -site septic regulations.
We do that through shellfish monitoring and testing
and all of those things. And that's an important
part of the work that we do. Well, that is really
cool. I have to ask, though, what happened before
public health when people went out to dig clams?
Did they just did someone have to draw the short
straw and eat the first clam? Because I've seen
them close those beaches in December when the
water is cold, saying that the marine biotoxin
level was too high. I mean, there was a whole,
almost a whole year there where the razor clam
seasons just weren't open for the most part.
And every time it was because they kept testing,
kept testing. And I think they were talking about
like red tides or green tides or something like
this that caused too much of that biotoxin. And
literally it was, it wouldn't just make you sick.
They said it was literally. dangerous to your
health. It could kill you. So I want to know,
what did we do before public health where shellfish
were concerned? Did we have really highly paid
risk -taking shellfish tasters? What did we do?
I mean, I don't know when the shellfish program
started. I would imagine we weren't probably
living. where we were living in such high concentrated
numbers. And so, you know, we weren't, you know,
building an outhouse right on the water kind
of situation. But yeah, it's definitely something
where it's a good example of when something becomes
an issue or a concern and a problem and government
works well with businesses to make sure that
people are safe. and healthy but economic businesses
can thrive and well shellfish eaters everywhere
um probably thank you yeah you know yeah thank
public health Always bringing the fun. Yeah.
That's what we do. I don't, I certainly wouldn't
sign up to be the shellfish taster. That's for
sure. Back in the old days. Well, Jamie, maybe
it's the same as the mushroom taster. It was
just like, Oh, let's go ask good old Axel over
here to go taste some shellfish and some mushrooms
and see, see what happens. And all right, give
him 12 hours. And if he's still kick, you know,
if he's still around, then it's good. And by
Axel, we're not talking about anyone more. We
know we're talking about just the. Hypothetical.
The hypothetical. Yeah. Just to clarify that.
All right. That's quite a way to finish a podcast.
Well, thanks, Jamie. You know, we've only got
a couple weeks left. I'm sure you and I'll have
a chance to chat again. But until then, take
care, okay? Yep. All right. Thanks for tuning
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