The Washington State Health Care Authority, the legislature, Office of the Insurance Commissioner and the federal government have completed 
changes in law, administrative rules and State Plan Amendments that will provide 
some additional long-term care insurance options for individuals planning for their future care needs.
 
Similar forms of the Washington State Long-Term Care Partnership, which was approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Dec. 27, 
have already been adopted by a number of other states as authorized in 2005 federal Deficit Reduction legislation. The partnership applies to services provided at home, 
in a community setting or in an institution.

On the eve of a big regulatory press conference tomorrow at the State Capitol, Washington's leading small-business association has released the results of its annual member poll.


NFIB will be a participant in tomorrow's press conference, organized by the Washington Policy Center, at 2:30 p.m. in the John A. Cherberg Building conference room at the state Capitol campus. WPC will present its suggested reforms of the state's regulatory climate that it gathered from its biennial statewide Small Business Conference.


Highline Community College's Board of Trustees has approved a resolution to support legislative efforts to secure new revenues.

The state's budget reductions have left the college with diminished resources necessary to carry out its mission and meet the educational needs of the community. Last year, the state allocation to the Des Moines-based school dropped 20 percent, from $25 million to $20 million. Additional reductions foreseen for the 2011-13 biennium will likely prevent another 1,000 students from attending HCC.

The Department of Labor & Industries has adopted the Hazardous Drugs rule, designed to protect Washington health care workers from exposure to chemotherapy drugs and other hazardous drugs.

The rule was adopted in response to a bill passed last year that required L&I to enact protections consistent with, but not exceeding, recommendations in the 2004 report by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and a 2010 update of that report.

Pierce County District Court, which handles more than 175,000 cases a year, has completed the move is its traffic and civil calendars to newly renovated courtrooms on the first floor of the County-City Building.

Last moth, the court closed its branch court in the Hosmer building on 96th Street in Tacoma, which it had operated for 15 years.

Karli Jorgensen has been confirmed to serve as a Kent Municipal Court judge. She has served as Kent's primary Pro Tem Judge since 1996. Jorgensen has a juris doctorate degree from the University of Washington. Since 1985, she has worked in both government and private practice engaging in criminal and civil law. Jorgensen is a member of the Washington State Bar Association, as well as the United States District Court of Western Washington and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Andy Bird has been named aerospace liaison for Clover Park Technical College. He is instructional dean for technology, transportation and science/engineering. Bird's new area of responsibility includes directing the more than $2.2 million in federal and state aerospace grants recently awarded to the college. Since 2008, Bird has led the college's efforts to form a strong partnership with its aerospace industry partners, including Boeing. He has a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and a master's degree in education from Western Washington University, and has worked for CPTC since 2007.

The Washington Supreme Court today upheld a challenge to state water law, affirming the state's position that groundwater used for stock-watering purposes is exempt from the requirement to apply for a water permit.

The case stemmed from a dispute over whether Easterday Ranches in Franklin County was required to obtain a permit to withdraw water from a well to operate a cattle feedlot serving about 30,000 head of cattle.

Jeff Kraft has joined Kidder Mathews' Tacoma brokerage division as a vice president. He will specialize in retail leasing, development and acquisitions. Kraft previously worked for Neil Walter Co.

Frederick Mendoza has been appointed to the Highline Community College Board of Trustees. After 30 years of public and private law practice, Mendoza founded Mendoza Law Center, PLLC in 2007. Prior to entering the private law sector, Mendoza served as King County deputy prosecuting attorney in the criminal and fraud divisions. He is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Law.

Attorney General McKenna has joined 53 other attorneys general in asking Congress to oppose legislation targeting consumers' telephone privacy.

The Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011 would amend the Communications Act of 1934 to allow for robo-calling to cell phones, forcing consumers to pay associated per-minute charges. For example, debt collectors and other businesses could place automated "informational" calls to cell phones, impacting those who pay by the minute or have a limited number of available minutes.

There will be no overall increase in workers' compensation insurance premiums next year.

In September, the state Department of Labor & Industries proposed a 2.5 percent increase. The decision to hold overall rates flat in 2012 is due to public testimony about the impact of the recession and recent positive trends in claims duration, according to L&I Director Judy Schurke.

New unemployment taxes and workers' compensation rates in Washington will be lower than expected, in part because of reforms passed earlier this year.

"This is the great news our workers, employers and those looking for jobs in our state have been waiting for," said Sen. Janéa Holmquist Newbry, Republican leader on the Senate Labor, Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee. "Lowering payroll taxes for our struggling employers – which reduces the cost for them to hire – is a major step in getting Washingtonians back to work and breathing life back into this state's economy." 

Three local organizations are among 6,000 international entries that have received top-level Marcom Awards from the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals.

The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation was recognized for its "Be the Spark" event, which featured Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The state Department of Labor & Industries is seeking public comment on a draft rule setting requirements for the handling of chemotherapy drugs and other hazardous drugs.

The 2011 legislature passed a bill requiring L&I to enact protections using recommendations included in a 2004 report by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health and a 2010 update of the report.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington collected more than $74 million in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year 2011, which ran Oct. 1, 2010, to Sept. 30, 2011.

In conjunction with these numbers, the Department of Justice announced that nationwide it collected more than $6.5 billion in debts owed to taxpayers during the same period.

Sharon D. Kukhahn, 62, of Tacoma was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to seven years in prison, three years of supervised release and $856,681 in restitution for conspiracy, four counts of tax evasion and corrupt interference with Internal Revenue Service laws.

Kukhahn, also known as Sharon Stephenson, was convicted in May. She was remanded to custody immediately following the verdict.

A bi-partisan bill introduced in the Senate today would generate an estimated $483 million for Washington state and local governments during Fiscal Year 2013-15, according to the Washington State Department of Revenue.

The Marketplace Fairness Act would require out-of-state companies with more than $500,000 a year in remote sales to begin collecting and remitting sales tax on sales to customers in Washington and other states that adopt certain changes to their tax laws to simplify collection. Washington already has adopted the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, so it could begin collecting these taxes 90 days after the bill is signed into law.

Breaking from big business and metropolitan chambers of commerce which oppose the measure, NFIB-member small business owners are highly supportive of the fiscal restraints and accountability called for in Initiative 1125.

The National Federation of Independent Business, America's leading small-business association, polled just about half of its 8,000 Washington members this month and found 76 percent support Initiative 1125 and an almost equal amount support (75 percent) Initiative 1183 from a 7 percent response to the special survey.

The newly released 2012 Salary Guides from Robert Half International show U.S. starting salaries will increase an average of 3.4 percent next year.

Technology positions are projected to see the largest gains among all fields researched, with an anticipated 4.5 percent increase in base compensation. Accounting and finance professionals can expect starting salaries to rise an average of 3.5 percent, according to the research.

The Washington State Redistricting Commission held a final public meeting this morning to discuss recommendations for reworking the state's nine congressional and 49 legislative sectors.

Key topics on the table for commissioners Tim Ceis, Dean Foster, Slade Gorton and Tom Huff are the addition of a 10th congressional district – based on an 830,000 population increase for the state in the last decade – and the balance of majority and minority ethnic representations throughout each region.

With more than 10,000 Washington homes in foreclosure during the first half of 2011 and another 76,400 homeowners seriously delinquent on their mortgages, the 2011 state legislature passed the Foreclosure Fairness Act.

The Washington Association of Realtors has joined forces with Attorney General Rob McKenna, industry attorneys and HUD-approved counseling services to provide comprehensive consumer education through a video that explains consumers' rights and options under the act.