Megan Cotton, the governor's senior policy adviser for transportation, and Eric Hansen, senior budget adviser for transportation, briefed the House Transportation Committee on Jan. 15 on Governor Jay Inslee's proposed transportation budgets and the fiscal constraints they faced.

The presentation said the Inslee proposal is a maintenance‑level budget with no new revenues and that the department faces an estimated $1,000,000,000 gap between available capital funding and the project list the legislature adopted. "There is a $1,000,000,000 gap in the capital improvement program," Cotton told the committee. Eric Hansen detailed how revenue forecasts declined over 2024: "between February [and] November of '24, the transportation revenue forecast dropped by over $500,000,000" and projected a $2.2 billion decline over 10 years.

Nut graf: The briefing framed the shortfall as the central problem for the 2025–27 transportation budget: declining revenue forecasts combined with rising project costs create a funding shortfall that the outgoing governor highlighted but did not solve, leaving the legislature and the incoming administration to weigh options.

Hansen said rising project costs added roughly $1,300,000,000 in pressure across statewide projects, and that the Inslee proposal totals about $14.7 billion for 2025–27, including $1.8 billion in debt service and roughly $12.8 billion in agency spending. He outlined several line items Inslee included above maintenance level: a $120,000,000 allocation intended to preserve design and preconstruction capacity (noted as necessary to keep fish‑passage culvert work moving), $30,000,000 toward tolling readiness (gantries and back‑office systems), $13,000,000 to continue work‑zone speed safety cameras and about $50,000,000 in additional spending toward Washington State Ferries operations and training.

Cotton told the committee the outgoing governor "chose to highlight challenges and concerns" but left the policy solutions for the incoming administration and the legislature. Hansen said the budget assumes no new revenue sources and included a $12,000,000 supplemental transfer from the Public Works Assistance Account devoted to culvert work. "Governor Inslee identified the problem, but is not provided a solution," Hansen said, describing the gap as something the legislature and the new administration would need to address.

Committee members asked clarifying questions about items funded as "one‑time" in prior budgets and whether those were intended to be ongoing. Cotton and Hansen said the design and preconstruction funding, ferry crew training, and passenger‑only ferry subsidies had been funded in prior biennia as one‑time items but were ongoing needs. Hansen also emphasized the multiyear nature of capital projects, noting that many large projects take four to eight years from design to completion.

Ending: The presentation concluded with staff offering to follow up on detailed line items and pointing legislators to fiscal.wa.gov for project‑level appropriation lists; committee members and several witnesses later urged the legislature to prioritize particular corridor and safety investments when they testified during the public hearing.