Reporter's Notebook

Think you can do better?

We know our legislators are hard at work in Olympia, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do our part to balance the state’s budget here. This week, Gov. Chris Gregoire unveiled interactive budget calculator that lets you decide what the state should cut in light of a $5.7 billion shortfall.

You can fiddle with funding for priority areas such as education, health care, public safety, economic vitality and the rainy day fund until the magic “you balanced the budget” button lights up. Once this happens, you can submit budget ideas to the governor’s office.

I’m not going to lie, it was pretty fun to play with. Until it dawned on me that the “cuts” I was making are real. There are valuable services that may not receive funding.

Last month, Gregoire proposed a 2009-2011 budget that closed the shortfall through a combination of program reductions, suspension of state employee, teacher and care worker salary increases, pension changes, increased federal contributions and use of the rainy day fund.

I don’t envy you, legislators.

-Megan Patrick-Vaughn can be reached at mpatrick@vbjusa.com

Editor’s note: The governor’s site was down this morning, but should be active soon