WSAC Adopts 2027-28 Legislative Priorities Agenda

The members of WSAC’s Legislative Steering Committee (LSC) adopted a new Legislative Priorities Agenda for the upcoming 2027-28 biennial legislative session at their recent meeting, September 17th in Ellensburg. Adopting the new priorities was one of the final steps in a process that began with a retreat in May and included numerous smaller workgroup meetings and policy staff effort over the following months. The WSAC 2027-28 Legislative Priorities Agenda, adopted by the LSC, includes six policy areas and several specific strategies.

Funding for public defense

• Collaborate with the Office of Public Defense’s (OPD) funding request to increase state support for local government public defense costs by $50 million.
• Propose new legal authority to allow OPD to work with counties that may voluntarily choose to allow OPD to provide public defense services directly.

Liability reform

• Restore local government protections under the public duty doctrine that have been recently undermined through case law, and require claimants to attest to the validity of their claims.
• Implement a mandatory alternative adjudicative process for most tort claims against state and local governments, including different processes for different types of claims. This includes administrative processing and decisions for smaller claims, up to a full court hearing before a judge for larger, more serious claims. Jury trials would be eliminated. A financial cap on damage awards for claimants will also be proposed.
• Amend the state’s joint and several liability framework by requiring that a defendant be found at least 50% liable for an injury before being held jointly liable, and limiting joint liability to economic damages only.
• Implementing various discrete policy reforms, including:
  • Allowing evidence of compliance/noncompliance with seat belt use in tort claims;
  • Excluding grant applications for infrastructure repairs and improvements as evidence for negligence in tort claims;
  • Prohibiting tort claims when the claimant is injured while engaged in a crime (with exceptions); and
  • Develop jury instructions to better explain the limits and implications of joint and several liability.

County revenue

• Partner with cities and other benefit districts to create the Local Government Financial Assistance Account that was included as intent language in SB 6346 (Tax on Millionaires) in state law and fund it.
• Pursue repayment of motor vehicle excise tax funds that were inadvertently misappropriated in previous years.

Jail modernization

• Propose a liability shield for county jail medical service providers if the county jail meets certain standards.
• Create a new $100 million grant program for county jail facility improvements consistent with the needed upgrades identified in the Jail Modernization Task Force report.

Housing

• Support a new excise tax on short-term rentals for local affordable housing needs.

Clean energy

• Remove the local government sales tax exemption for clean energy projects.

While these priorities have been identified and approved by the LSC, further work remains to be completed before the upcoming legislative session begins in January. WSAC’s policy staff must now begin the difficult work of drafting the final version of each proposal, finding legislative sponsors, creating advocacy tools, and building support. The final legislative package will be presented to the LSC at their meeting during the County Leaders Conference in November for final review and approval.

Media Contact:
Paul Jewell, WSAC Government Relations Director