Today is day 40 of the 2022 short legislative session. There are 20 days remaining until the legislature is scheduled to adjourn. From here until March 10, the focus will be on coming to agreement on a state supplemental budget plan that will address state spending from July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023.

Here’s a link to last week’s Capitol Update that describes WHCA’s legislative priorities.

This week, House and Senate budget leaders announced that the release of supplemental budget proposals would be delayed until Monday, February 21, 2022.

The Senate plan will be released at 8 a.m. and the House Democrat budget release will follow at noon. Public hearings are scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. in the House Appropriations Committee on the House plan, and at 4 p.m. in the Senate Ways and Means Committee for the Senate Democrat proposal. (The majority party is always in charge of budget development in each house.)

Our work on Monday will be to review and analyze both proposals, and to provide testimony in the public hearings regarding the plans. We will also be working to update you about budget plans for skilled nursing facilities and assisted living centers, and we will be working to make it easy for you to advocate about these budget plans with your own elected officials.

On Tuesday morning after a debate of over 9 hours, the House of Representatives passed EHB 1837, legislation that would expand the Department of Labor and Industries' authority to generate ergonomics regulations for Washington workplaces, including skilled nursing and assisted living centers. The legislation very narrowly passed and must now travel to the Senate for consideration. We oppose this legislation. This is an issue that predates many legislators and policymakers, but it is certainly not a new issue to the providers represented by WHCA.

House Bill 1837 reverses Initiative 841 which repealed WAC 296-62-051 (the “ergonomics rule”) and essentially prohibited L&I from issuing new rules except to comply with federal law. One of the reasons why this initiative passed in 2003 was because the rule was so problematic.

After the promulgation of the original ergonomics rule, but before the initiative passed, Employer Resources Northwest (ERNwest), WHCA’s third party administrator, created and published a manual that, if followed, would bring all skilled nursing and assisted living buildings in compliance with the rule. The 300+ page manual is an example of what all Washington employers would have had to do to comply with the rule.

While EHB 1837 itself does not reinstate this rule, the legislation would permit L&I to again regulate ergonomics in the workplace. We believe the problem with regulating “overexertion” type injuries is the regulations in this area are too broad and overly burdensome.

WHCA has long operated a very successful workers compensation management program and our employers have strong incentives to keep workers safe. When we focus on workplace safety, the focus is not ‘overexertion,’ because it is too burdensome to do effectively, but rather on the areas specific to each business that cause most of the overexertion type injuries.