Bainbridge Island elected officials heard a briefing from the city’s team of state lobbyists at the May 13 council meeting, learning that very few of the city’s priorities and policies advanced during the 2024-25 legislative session.

Some of the biggest agenda items for COBI this legislative session were familiar topics to island residents: reliable ferry service, management of ferry queues and funding for the Winslow Workforce Housing Project. Others were a bit more obscure: funding for the High School Road fish passage project and amendments to the Public Records Act to protect the privacy of city newsletter subscribers.

Unfortunately, the city saw little success this time around, said the city’s lead lobbyist Briahna Murray and associate Amina Abdall. This was a long session with 24 new legislators, a new governor and a $15.5 billion state funding shortfall over the next four years — which meant things were tough for many municipalities, Abdall said.

“To fully understand what shaped the session, it’s important to understand the political environment,” said Abdall. “This year’s budget negotiations were uniquely difficult. Washington entered the session with a projected shortfall of $15 billion, one of the largest fiscal challenges in over a decade. The shortfall driven by slowing revenue growth and rising caseloads influenced every fiscal decision, and put many local project requests under intense scrutiny.”

The state allocated about $201.3 million to local community projects — about $30 million less than its previous budget from 2023, with the average project award coming in around $604,000.

“Although [the Capital budget] was one of the most stable budgets, it was also the most competitive, with legislators receiving ten times the amount of funding requests,” said Abdall.

COBI requested $5 million in capital funding from the state legislature to support the Winslow Workforce Housing Project, which “we knew going in was a fairly bold request,” said Murray.

Her team held out hope for the request, knowing housing was top of mind for many legislators in Olympia this session. But despite advocacy from 23rd District elected’s like Senator Drew Hansen and Representatives Greg Nance and Tara Simmons, the request ended up in the wastepaper basket.

“We were surprised when the final capital budget proposal was released and the $5 million was not included,” said Murray. “We were able to follow up with budget writers after the fact, and learned that a strong concern on appropriating the $5 million at this stage was that there is a preference for the state appropriation to be the ‘last dollar in,’ and a preference for housing projects to apply to the Housing Trust Fund first, prior to seeking a direct appropriation from the legislature.”

If the city and its development partner for the project, the Low Income Housing Institute, apply to the Housing Trust Fund first and secure more cash on reserve, it will be in a strong position going into 2026 to ask for that same $5 million from the state legislature, Murray added.

The transportation budget maintained its funding for existing projects, including those that are scheduled or already underway, but did not include any new investments, and many projects were delayed.

Ferry conversions will be paused until after the World Cup in 2026, per Governor Bob Ferguson, but the current conversion project will still be completed, and that boat will return to the Bainbridge-Seattle route. The state legislature also approved a raise for ferry workers and decided to pass a small transaction surcharge onto ferry passengers who pay for their ticket with a debit card.

COBI’s $2 million request for more law enforcement officers stationed at ferry terminals to prevent line-cutting — a $900,000 increase over last session’s budget — was not included. In fact, the legislature cut funding for this program from $1.3 million to $600,000 in order to close a nearly $1 billion budget deficit.

“We’re not alone in seeing a cut in revenues there. Several stakeholders share that experience,” said Murray.

Even the city’s requests that weren’t tied to funding saw little progress. COBI’s push in the legislature to exempt subscribers to city publications from disclosure during Public Records Act requests gained no ground. It can take several years to pass a policy bill, and those related to information and disclosure are “notoriously controversial in Olympia,” said Murray.

But there’s always next session, Murray noted.

“We were not very successful in advancing many of the city’s priorities. That said, I’d urge you to think about the legislative agenda as a two-year document,” Murray said. “For each of these items, we got the ball rolling, we just didn’t roll it across the finish line.”