Rep. Spencer Hutchins praises bipartisan supplemental transportation budget, urges ferry urgency
Feb 25, 2024
Rep. Spencer Hutchins, R-Gig Harbor, urges House members to vote "yes" on the 2024 supplemental transportation budget. Hutchins, who serves as the assistant ranking Republican member on the House Transportation Committee, praised the bipartisanship that way in which the budget was crafted. He also used the moment to continue to push for urgent action to fix Washington state's ferry system, and ensure everything that can be done is being done regarding recruitment and retention of staff. Hutchins noted that between July and September of last year there 1,069 ferry cancellations in Washington state. He said 60% of those cancellations were related to staffing issues.
thank you Mr Speaker and I'm proud to
stand in support of this supplemental
Transportation budget and I'm grateful
to follow my friend from the 10th Vice
chair of the committee along with my
other Vice chair colleagues and the
chair of the committee from the 27th and
my friend from the 2nd the ranking
member this is a by partisan budget this
was a bipartisan process and Mr Speaker
I was proud to be able to work with my
friend from the 10th District
specifically on fairy issues and he
spoke a lot about some of the concerns
that uh that we know we have with the
fery system this is a system that is
really under a great deal of pressure Mr
Speaker between July and September last
year there were 1, 169 fairy
cancellations in the state of Washington
60% of those 1,69 cancellations were the
result of staffing issues and so Mr
Speaker as we look at the Investments
that we're making in our fairy Staffing
as my friend pointed out
this is crucial
infrastructure the faeries are part of
our uh part of our highway system and
the ferry workers who work on those
boats make sure that that that highway
system is reliable dependable and that
the people who need our fairy system to
get to work to get to their jobs to the
store to school all of the economic
activity that goes on in our state as a
result of that fairy system those
workers are essential and so I'm proud
of the work that we have done in this
budget around
fairies and as the the member from the
10th pointed out we have focused here on
maintenance and
preservation it is all well and good and
crucial that we look at new
infrastructure Investments but Mr
Speaker there is no wisdom in building
infrastructure that is not
maintained there is no wisdom in a
budget that seeks to raid maintenance
and preservation in order to do new
infrastructure Investments I'm proud
that this budget prioritizes correctly
the maintenance and preservation of not
only our ferry system but our roads and
bridges Mr Speaker this is a difficult
budget year this has not been an easy
process I credit the leadership of the
transportation committee for the hard
and bipartisan work that was done here
to be responsible fiscally responsible
with the resources that the Citi of the
state of Washington have entrusted this
legislature with I urge uh its approval
by this body thank
you