Hat trick in 5 minutes Tips roar back to win round one of the WHL playoffs, 5-1, Page C1
Pompeii: The Exhibit The Pacific Science Center offers a moment of ancient Roman culture, famously frozen in time by disaster. More things to do in Venture, A13 ●
EVERETT, WASHINGTON
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New tax in state budget
MARYSVILLE PILCHUCK
$5 million for cafeteria The money is only in a proposed budget by House Democrats to cover most of the cost of replacing the site. By Jerry Cornfield Herald staff
OLYMPIA — The state would provide $5 million to build a new cafeteria at Marysville Pilchuck High School under a plan released Friday by
House Democrats. The money is in the capital budget proposed by majority Democrats and is intended to shoulder much of the financial weight of replacing the site where a deadly shooting occurred in October.
federal grant will >> Ahelp$50,000 the school district cover
shooting expenses, A3
The allocation is not a certainty — there remain weeks of give and take between House Democrats and Senate Republicans before a final budget is passed — but the outlay is a relatively small amount and seems to have broad support.
Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, who as chairman of the House Capital Budget Committee wrote the spending plan, said he told district leaders that lawmakers stood ready to help out in any way they could. “We’ve been real quiet about it,” Dunshee said. “We wanted to help but we did not want to See MPHS, Page A2
The plan by House Democrats is intended to address a mandate on education spending, but Republicans are opposed.
First time for everything
Associated Press and Herald staff
Snow depth at three locations is zero, but rainfall makes up for it
PUD staff members measure the snow level each March by sinking a long, hollow tube marked with inches and feet into the snow to determine the depth. They pull it out and weigh it with a handheld scale to determine how much water is in the snow trapped in the hollow tube.
OLYMPIA — House Democrats on Friday released a two-year budget plan that proposes a capital gains tax as part of nearly $1.5 billion in new revenue to address a court mandate on education spending. State Senate Republicans quickly countered that new taxes should not be part of the solution. Under the House plan, the state tax on the sale of stocks, bonds and other assets wouldn’t kick in until next year and would raise $570 million for the last year of the 2015-17 budget. Budget writers say the first $400 million raised would be booked to comply with a state Supreme Court order to increase spending on K-12 education. Any additional amount raised beyond that — estimated to be $170 million a year — would go to higher education. The plan proposes to spend $412 million to reduce class sizes in kindergarten through third grade; $741 million on textbooks and supplies; and $180 million on all-day kindergarten. It also restores cost-of-living raises for teachers that have been suspended by the Legislature for the past several years. House Democrats are also seeking to freeze tuition at the state’s universities for two years. “If the court wants a plan, this is a plan. A funded plan,” said Rep. Ross Hunter, a Democrat from Medina who is the main budget writer in the House. The Republican-controlled Senate is expected to release its budget as early as next week. Sen. Andy Hill, R-Redmond, the lead budget writer in the Senate, said the House approach of creating a new tax to pay for the state’s constitutional duty of funding education is not appropriate. “Quite frankly, I don’t know if that’s unconstitutional or just unconscionable,” he said. House Democrats and Senate
See SNOW, back page, this section
See BUDGET, back page, this section
IAN TERRY / THE HERALD
Mark Flury, a principal engineer with the Snohomish County Public Utility District, uses a survey tube to take a sample of a trace amount of snow at Stickney Ridge, located at 3,600 feet elevation at Spada Lake near Sultan on Thursday. The location typically averages a snow depth of 101.4 inches for this time of year, almost 12 inches higher than the 90 inch tube in Flury’s hands.
By Dan Catchpole Herald Writer
the buzz
EVERETT — Zero. That’s the depth of snow in the Sultan River basin. It was measured Thursday by Snohomish County Public Utility District staff members. When the helicopter flew into the basin around Spada Lake, Mark Flury, the lead engineer of the PUD’s generation division,
could only see patches of snow at higher elevations. Lower down, the ridges were completely bare, he said. “I was a little bit surprised.” Since it started a yearly survey in 1986, the PUD has never recorded zero snowpack. But Flury isn’t worried. It’s been a warm and wet winter. So there has been plenty of rainfall, if little snow. The water level in Spada Lake
Worth the wait? Meanwhile in first-class: A lack of luxury seats from a supplier has forced Boeing to park at least two of its 787 Dreamliners in California’s Mojave Desert while it waits for the supplier to catch up. The first-class “cabin seats,” which cost between $150,000 and $300,000, lie flat and offer in-flight entertainment and massage
motors (Page A9). Here’s how to speed things up and save some money: Leave out the inflight entertainment system and massage motors and we’ll juggle and give neck rubs for $100,000. Don’t so much as go near the gelato, Amanda: After years of trials, appeals and appeals of appeals in the Italian courts, Italy’s Court
Reservoir, which provides the county with 80 percent of its drinking water, is 106 percent of what it was at this time last year, said Marla Carter of the city of Everett’s Public Works Division. While the PUD manages the Jackson Hydroelectric Project and Culmback Dam around the lake, the city manages the system that delivers drinking water to most of the county.
of Cassation finally overturned the conviction of Seattle’s Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend for the 2007 murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher (Page A6). Even though her name has been cleared, we recommend Knox not apply for that opening as Italian correspondent for Rick Steves’ Europe Through the Back Door books.
Don’t know much about history: On this day in 1834, the U.S. Senate voted to censure President Andrew Jackson, that fellow on the $20 bill, for the removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States (Today in History, Page C8). This is where we get the phrase “significant penalty for early withdrawal.”
—Jon Bauer, Herald staff
INSIDE Business . . . . .A9 Classified . . . . B1 Comics . . . . . . C8 Crossword . . . C8 Dear Abby. . . . C9 Horoscope . . . B6 Repeat 57/49, C12 VOL. 115, NO. 45 © 2015 THE DAILY HERALD CO.
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