NEAH BAY — Gov. Gary Locke’s proposed 2002 supplemental budget includes $1.4 million to keep the rescue tugboat Barbara Foss on station for 200 days during the 2002-03 winter.
However, it remains to be seen whether that funding will survive the coming bloodletting as the Legislature prepares to cut as much as $1.5 billion from the $22 billion state budget.
“Everything is on the table,” legislative Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, said Thursday. “Given the severity of budget problems, I really don’t know what is going to happen.
Buck called the budget proposal a “a recommendation from the governor.”
“How the Legislature is going to deal with it, I don’t know,” he said.
But House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, is hopeful the state’s congressional delegation can come up with some funding to secure the Barbara Foss’ place in Neah Bay.
“They seem to think they can help,” she said. “We need a long-term solution instead of trying to find money every year.”
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