This bill reenacts and amends RCW 43.88C.010 to create a Caseload Forecast Council and to establish its membership, staffing, voting rules, and duties. The council will be composed of two governor appointees and four legislative caucus appointees (one from the chair of each of the two largest caucuses in each chamber), with the chair selected from the four legislative appointees. The law requires the council to employ a caseload forecast supervisor on a three-year term (with specified consideration for a one-year extension at the end of the first year), gives the council authority to set supervisor compensation and staff, and requires an affirmative vote of at least five members for supervisor employment decisions and at least four members to approve official state caseload forecasts. The measure makes procedural changes to how official caseload forecasts are prepared, approved, and handled if the council cannot reach approval by required deadlines: the supervisor may submit an unapproved forecast that will have the same legal effect as an approved forecast. A councilmember who withholds approval may request an alternative forecast based on assumptions they specify. The council’s forecasting duties are expanded or clarified to cover numerous program caseloads and counts (including public assistance programs, corrections, juvenile institutions, school system measures, higher education scholarship and grant eligibilities, early childhood program participation, working families’ tax credit eligibility with child-count breakdowns, Medicaid waiver and developmental disabilities program counts, foster care and extended foster care separations, behavioral rehabilitation services, and specified adult protective services counts and referrals). This is a procedural and organizational statutory change rather than a criminal or penalty change. The document provided reenacts and amends RCW 43.88C.010 but does not include the text of RCW 43.88C.020 (the specific timing and deadlines referenced), appropriation or funding details, or the external definitions found in other RCWs; those missing elements and any other sections or effective dates are not included in the provided facts.

If enacted, the bill creates a new caseload forecast council with specific gubernatorial and legislative appointments and a paid caseload forecast supervisor on a renewable three-year term who hires staff. The council gets formal control over producing and approving official forecasts, with higher vote thresholds to hire the supervisor (five votes) and to approve forecasts (four votes), but the supervisor may submit forecasts that count as approved if the council misses statutory deadlines. The council must expand the range of official forecasts to cover many programs (including detailed counts for the working families’ tax credit, adult protective services measures, extended foster care, juvenile rehabilitation, Medicaid waiver eligibility, college scholarship and grant eligibility, and others), and it will produce several courtesy forecasts involving the Developmental Disabilities Administration if funds are provided and the DDA supplies service request lists. The most affected parties are the new council and its supervisor (who gain staffing and budget responsibilities), the governor and legislative caucus leaders (who make the appointments), and state program agencies such as the Developmental Disabilities Administration, juvenile rehabilitation, foster care programs, and agencies that run the listed benefits and services, which will need to provide data and will likely face new or more detailed forecasts that can influence budgeting and planning. The council will incur staffing and travel costs (members are reimbursed when on official business), some forecasts are expressly subject to available appropriations so they may not occur without funding, and the bill leaves key timing and funding details to RCW 43.88C.020 and appropriation actions, which are not included here and create uncertainty about exact implementation.