State lawmakers today approved several budget bills designed to narrow the state’s $1.1 billion budget gap during an emergency six-hour special session. Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, voted in favor of the bills, saying he supports this first step toward fiscal sustainability.

“This is just a first step,” King said. “The state still has to make more changes if we are to complete the current fiscal year without having a deficit, and even when we close the budget gap for the current biennium, the state will still be facing another multi-billion dollar shortfall going into the 2011-13 biennium. There are some vital structural reform proposals that need to be looked at in January if we’re going to get the state back on the right track.”

The budget items passed by the Legislature today include reductions in K-12 and higher education, human services, various fund transfers, and other revenue efforts. King says he and others have been calling for state government to reexamine its priorities and methods for delivering services.

“We absolutely need to find more efficient ways to run our state, and we need to find and eliminate fraud and abuse within the system,” King said. “These were not perfect bills and made cuts in areas I would have preferred not to have made, but I’ll be working with Republicans and Democrats to find ways of making spending reductions that don’t threaten our state’s most vulnerable citizens and maintains our educational system. I’m confident that we’ll be able to rise to that challenge.”