Pew data: DCYF, long‑term care, special education and K‑12 drove recent budget growth

Jeff Chapman of the Pew Charitable Trusts presented preliminary data showing which agencies and program areas accounted for the bulk of Washington’s budget growth over recent biennia. "The 8 agencies on the left expanded as a share of the budget," Chapman said, identifying the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), long‑term care, special education and K‑12 among the top growth contributors.

Chapman walked the committee through distinctions the team used: carryforward (timing adjustments when items funded late in a biennium become ongoing), maintenance (statutory or caseload‑driven inflation and rate adjustments), and policy (new or expanded programs). In many agencies, he said, growth came from maintenance and carryforward adjustments tied to earlier policy decisions. For example, in DCYF, the working‑connections childcare forecast adjustment was the largest maintenance increase while self‑insurance liability premium payments were a major policy increase.

Committee members probed a sample item: Representative Joe Fain asked why a Working Connections childcare increase was classified as maintenance when it followed an eligibility expansion. Eric Cornelia of the Caseload Forecast Council and Pew staff explained that some policy choices later show up in caseload forecasts and therefore in maintenance calculations. "It was a policy level decision to expand the eligibility, but then it got captured as a maintenance level bow wave," Representative Fain said.

Pew told the committee its slides and underlying data will be shared with members for follow‑up; members requested further decomposition (e.g., how much of sales/property/B&O taxes are borne by businesses vs. households).