SEATTLE - As Washington voters consider whether to allow soft drinks, candy and bottled water to be taxed, they can look to Colorado for guidance. That state was in the same situation and decided to allow the tax this year.

The Colorado Center on Law and Policy says none of the soft drink industry's dire predictions - from job losses to taxes on other kinds of groceries - have come to pass. However, Kathy White, policy director at the Center in Denver, says the fight leading up to the decision was a tough one.

"I've never seen that kind of opposition to a tax policy in Colorado before. Pepsi and Coke allowed employees to take the day off to sit in the Finance Committee hearing. There were all sorts of charges that this would cost 800 jobs - and that just hasn't panned out, to be quite honest."

White thinks the soft drink industry is fighting hard to pass Initiative 1107 in Washington because if it fails, other cash-strapped states will also try to make pop and candy taxable items.

Like Washington, Colorado is in a severe state budget crisis. Taxing pop and candy there now brings in $18 million a year. In Washington, taxing those items plus bottled water would bring in more than $100 million a year, according to the Washington State Budget and Policy Center.

Ingrid McDonald, advocacy director with AARP Washington, says it's money the state can't afford to pass up - for health care, eldercare and education.

"Two cents on a bottle of water or soda is a really small price to pay to maintain our quality of education in our state and to ensure that we're not cutting back on things that help older people stay in their own homes as they age."

The American Beverage Association has contributed more than $14 million to the campaign to repeal the tax.




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A new study provides New York State with an outline of necessary updates to its school funding formula.

The Rockefeller Institute study called for improving several areas such as the Regional Cost Index, which has not been updated in 18 years. Other focus areas include the poverty metric, which does not give a comprehensive picture of students' needs.

Randi Levine, policy director for Advocates for Children of New York, said other updates should have been considered.

"We're disappointed that there are no recommendations to add weight for students experiencing homelessness and students in foster care so that schools can better meet their needs to provide per-pupil funding for preschoolers in pre-K and 3-K," Levine explained.

She added the provisions could be passed through bills introduced by lawmakers.

More than 155,000 New York State public school students were homeless during the 2022-2023 school year. Of those, 120,000 were New York City Public School students. Columbia University found the current Foundation Aid formula uses poverty numbers from the 2000 Census and cost-of-living averages from 2006.

The Rockefeller Institute study suggested numerous ways for lawmakers to update the school funding formula. However, Levine argued some of them must be assessed for their efficacy, including a recommendation to update the poverty measure and provide a different way to measure it.

"The study provides a few different ways of doing that," Levine observed. "The study notes one of the proposals for how to change that weight would result in New York City seeing a projected decrease of around $392 million."

Other recommendations in the report included using a scaling aid approach to better supply funding for students with disabilities, a new adjustment based on instruction service hours for English Language Learners and letting school districts use Foundation Aid dollars for general education purposes, rather than regimented direct spending.


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New York could see major effects from President-elect Donald Trump's proposed budget cuts.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's Department of Government Efficiency is set to slice $2 trillion in federal spending. While their focus is cutting agency budgets and the government's workforce, safety nets will be in their crosshairs.

Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, said states will have flexibilities if cuts occur, but they will make using services harder.

"In practice, these flexibilities will mean things like cutting back eligibility, adding red tape so that it's harder for families and people to get through the process, which cuts down on enrollment," Alker explained. "We know that from the unwinding that we've just been through."

She added benefits could be limited and providers who see a lot of low-wage working families might face reimbursement cuts. There has been consideration to cut Medicaid's expansion match rate to a regular rate, which would move most costs to states. Estimates show New York's cost for expansion group under a reduced federal match rate could be more than $5 billion, if it occurs.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could face cuts as well.

Mayra Alvarez, president of the Children's Partnership, said the proposed changes outlined in Project 2025 could make the program harder to access while increasing inefficiencies.

"Everything from increasing time limits for the program for adults without dependents," Alvarez outlined. "Also, eliminating categorical eligibility, which would remove the state options of increasing the gross income limits from 130 % of the poverty line to up to 200%."

In 2022, 53% of SNAP participants in New York were families with children, and close to 3 million people statewide relying on the program. Nationwide, SNAP has helped lift more than 3.4 million people out of poverty in 2023.

In the Wyoming governor's new supplemental state budget, the biggest line item by far is wildfire recovery.

Gov. Mark Gordon on Monday gave a virtual speech to kick off several days of agency budget meetings, in which legislators request supplements to the 2025-2026 biennial budget adopted in March.

Gordon noted the historic nature of the 2024 wildfire season, which he said burned 850,000 acres across the state and cost more than $55 million in suppression efforts. The price tag emptied several state coffers, he said, and he requested $130 million be added to the new budget for similar purposes.

"Without further appropriation, Wyoming will not have sufficient unobligated funds to effectively respond to future fires or other potential emergencies such as flooding or rapid runoff or massive winter and spring snowstorms," Gordon contended. "Which as we know are not uncommon to Wyoming."

The funds would also help with recovery efforts after wildfire, such as preventing invasive plant species from taking over burned landscapes and providing assistance to restore lost infrastructure and stabilize watersheds.

Gordon also requested funds to both mitigate past federal actions and prepare for future ones. One example is the federal COVID-era American Rescue Plan Act, designed to fund local governments' infrastructure projects. The deadline for the plans was this year. Many proposed project in Wyoming were delayed, Gordon said, because of "federal deadlines and supply-chain issues." He asked for more than $20 million in mineral royalty grants to fill the gaps.

"The unprecedented influx of federal programs, beginning with the CARES Act, skewed Wyoming's homegrown approach to addressing community emergencies and needs," Gordon argued. "This is the time we can return to the more conservative and direct approach our state is accustomed to."

Gordon also asked for two additional senior attorneys to be funded for the Attorney General's Office to continue challenging federal regulations, which, he said, "hinder our ability to manage agriculture, energy, water and wildlife."


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