This bill amends existing state budget law (RCW 43.88.030 and RCW 43.88.055) to change how the governor’s budget and agency budget submissions are prepared and what they must include. It requires the Office of Financial Management (OFM) to give agencies submission instructions at least three months before agency budget documents are due, specifies detailed content the governor’s biennial operating and capital budget documents must contain (including revenue and expenditure schedules, performance indicators, and long-range facility and capital project details), and requires detailed component cost breakdowns for major capital projects over $5 million and projected operation and maintenance costs for certain land acquisitions for at least the two biennia after the next biennium. The act makes procedural and definitional changes rather than creating new crimes or changing criminal penalties. It clarifies fiscal rules and definitions used in budgeting, including definitions for “available fiscal resources,” “projected maintenance level,” and “related funds” (the Washington opportunity pathways account, workforce education investment account, fair start for kids account, and education legacy trust account). It requires that revenues used in the governor’s expenditure proposal be based on estimates from the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council and the Caseload Forecast Council (or OFM estimates for funds not forecasted by those councils), and it generally bars changing the format of budget reports in ways that affect comparability without prior legislative concurrence. The bill also adds procedural requirements for institutions of higher education seeking funding for major project cost increases in the 2023-2025 or 2025-2027 biennia to provide a statement describing unexpected costs, mitigation efforts, and other funding sources. It requires the legislature to adopt balanced omnibus operating appropriations with a positive ending fund balance in the general fund and related funds (noting a governor requirement beginning in the 2021-2023 biennium and a statutory legislative requirement referenced beginning in 2013-2015), and it defers the precise statutory definition of “capital project” to recommendations from a joint legislative/OFM committee. The act takes effect immediately. The extracted text references limiting assumed revenues to projected revenues by the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council, but the complete statutory language implementing that limitation and the amendment to RCW 43.88.055 are not fully present in the provided facts, so some specifics are uncertain.

If enacted, state budgets will be constrained to the official revenue and caseload forecasts and must show a positive ending balance and that projected maintenance costs fit within available fiscal resources; that will likely reduce the room for new or expanded programs and force agencies and the governor to prioritize within forecasted revenues. Agencies will get OFM budget instructions earlier (at least three months before submissions), which gives them more time to prepare but also locks them into more prescriptive forecasting rules and reporting requirements that increase scrutiny of maintenance-level requests and statewide priorities. Capital project sponsors and higher education institutions face tighter documentation and scrutiny: projects over $5 million will need standardized, itemized cost breakdowns, institutions seeking state funding for major cost increases in 2023–25 or 2025–27 must justify unexpected costs and show mitigation and alternative funding, and land purchases for recreation or habitat must identify operation and maintenance costs for the following two biennia. These requirements make it harder to win additional state funding without clear mitigation plans and long-term O&M funding, and may shift costs or slow projects; the bill leaves some details unclear, notably the full language limiting assumed revenues and the formal definition of "capital project," which is deferred to a joint committee.