The bill creates a new Washington Saves administrative trust account in the custody of the state treasurer and amends and reenacts provisions of existing law (RCW 19.05.010, RCW 19.05.110, and RCW 43.79A.040). It makes a procedural and fiscal change by authorizing that account to be used only for administrative and operating expenses of the Washington Saves program, allows it to receive grants, gifts, and other moneys, requires interest earned to remain in the account, and exempts the account from the state appropriation and allotment rules in chapter 43.88 RCW. Expenditures from the account may be authorized only by the director of the administrative agency or the director’s designee. The bill also creates an investment income account within the treasury trust fund, authorizes the account to pay purchased banking services without an appropriation for those payments, and sets a monthly distribution procedure for investment earnings: the state treasurer must distribute earnings to the state general fund monthly except for enumerated accounts and funds that receive a proportionate share of earnings based on average daily balance, and a specified set of six accounts that receive 80 percent of their proportionate share. It requires that payments from the investment income account to financial institutions be made before the monthly distributions and includes a constitutional compliance statement that no trust accounts receive earnings without specific statutory directive. The act adds and clarifies many statutory definitions related to the Washington Saves program and its administration, including “administrative account,” “administrative agency” (which must begin supporting the governing board no later than July 1, 2027), “covered employer” (with specific eligibility criteria including at least two years in business, a physical presence, no qualified retirement plan for certain employees, and a combined minimum of 10,400 employee hours in the prior calendar year), “covered employee” (age 18 or older), IRAs, payroll deduction IRA agreements, and the Department of Labor and Industries as the “department.” Some portions of the statutory text and context are missing from the provided material: Section 4’s reenactment/amendment text is incomplete in the extract, the bill header’s stated effective and expiration dates are not all present, and the full text of referenced RCW sections (for example RCW 19.05.030 and RCW 19.05.040) is not included here. The act does specify that Section 3 of the act expires July 1, 2030, and that Section 4 takes effect July 1, 2030.

If enacted, the bill creates a Washington Saves administrative trust account held by the state treasurer that can receive grants, gifts, and retained interest and be spent only for the program’s administrative and operating expenses at the authorization of the administrative agency director or their designee. That gives the Washington Saves program a dedicated funding source outside the regular appropriation and allotment process, so the agency designated to support the governing board (required to begin that support by July 1, 2027) will have more direct control and likely steady, discretionary funding for administration but also the responsibility to manage those funds and any startup or ongoing costs. Employers meeting the bill’s coverage tests (in business at least two years, physical presence, no qualified retirement plan for eligible staff, and combined employee hours of at least 10,400 in the prior year) and employees age 18 or older are the groups affected by who falls under the program’s duties and enforcement rules. The bill also sets aside an investment income account in the treasurer’s trust fund to pay banking services before monthly distributions of earnings; those payments do not require appropriation. Each month the treasurer will send earnings to the state general fund except that a long list of named accounts (including the Washington Saves administrative trust account) receive their proportionate share based on average daily balances and a small set of accounts receive 80 percent of their share, which means the administrative account will likely get some ongoing investment earnings. Section 3 of the act expires July 1, 2030, and Section 4 takes effect July 1, 2030; the text provided is incomplete on some points and the bill’s header effective and expiration dates are not included here, so timing and some implementation details remain uncertain.