Initiatives could cost taxpayers, state says

Proposals total more than $300 million CHRIS MULICK; Tri-City Herald Two citizen initiatives likely to qualify for the November ballot would compound an already gloomy budget situation if approved by voters, possibly pushing the state’s shortfall past $3 billion. Preliminary estimates from the Department of Revenue indicate that professional initiative promoter Tim Eyman’s traffic congestion measure – Initiative 985 –would cost the state about $290 million during the next two-year budget cycle and the rest of the current one. And the campaign for Initiative 1029, a home-care worker training measure backed by the powerful Service Employees International Union, believes its measure would cost at least $23 million during that time. That number’s based on a nonpartisan analysis of similar measures before the Legislature this... [read full story]