The following is a release from the office of Sen. Cyrus Habib:

The Senate passed its operating budget proposal for the 2015-17 biennium on April 6 on a party line 26-23 vote. Legislative negotiations will now reconcile the proposal with the budget passed by the House earlier this month to come together to a final compromise budget.

Sen. Cyrus Habib, D-Kirkland, voted no on the proposal, citing the unbalanced accounting gimmicks and cuts to key services in the budget.

“I believe that passing a balanced, bipartisan budget that sustainably invests in education is our top priority for this session,” said Habib. “I had hoped that I’d be able to vote for such a budget today, but the proposal before us irresponsibly takes on debt, spends money we don’t have, and makes cuts to crucial services that people rely on. We need to find a bipartisan compromise that provides every young Washingtonian access to a quality public education, while lowering tuition at our colleges and universities. From this starting point, we have a lot of work to do to get there.”

The Senate budget proposal takes out $200 million in new debt through borrowing from the Public Works Assistance Account and relies on shifting $325 million in funding from marijuana sales taxes out of voter-approved youth drug prevention and public safety programs. The budget cuts $75 million by rejecting contracts negotiated with public employees, and cuts funding for Washington’s courts system.

“I had hoped to vote for Sen. Hill’s budget proposal today, but ultimately could not do so because many aspects of it appear to me to be irresponsible,” said Habib. “It’s irresponsible to cut funding for the courts just because you don’t like a decision they made. It’s irresponsible to cut our state workforce, which will make it more difficult to hire and retain quality public servants. It’s beyond irresponsible to take out new debt to fund education. Democrats offered compromise amendments to the budget to try to resolve these issues – the Republican majority rejected our solutions. We need to get back to work in a bipartisan way to bring both sides together and get back to a responsible budget that really solves our problems and invests in our future.”