The governor’s budget director recently admitted state government is headed for its third multibillion-dollar budget shortfall in three years.
This is happening despite the billions of dollars in new taxes imposed since Governor Ferguson took office. It’s more proof that control of Olympia has swung too far to the left. Voters should look to tip it back toward the center this fall.
The chronic overspending behind these shortfalls is made worse when the agencies under the governor’s control fail to make the best possible use of taxpayer dollars. That should include looking for and fighting fraud – but sadly, it doesn’t seem to be a priority for the majority.
More than three months have passed since I brought up the issue of fraud in a regular meeting with the governor and his chief of staff. I detailed the troubling findings of a state audit involving the Department of Children, Youth and Families.
The auditors had randomly sampled from the nearly 400,000 payments DCYF made to childcare providers during the 2025 fiscal year, using federal funds. One of every four payments they examined stood out because of inadequate records, overbilling by the provider or overpayment by the agency.
Based on that sampling the auditors came up with an estimated $37 million in “questionable” payments. Between the dollar amount and the childcare angle, comparisons were immediately made with the massive childcare-fraud scandal in Minnesota, which was still in the news.
Republicans didn’t jump to the conclusion that fraud had been committed. I simply made it clear to the governor and his chief of staff that taxpayers deserve the full story. I also suggested that childcare providers who follow the rules should welcome a thorough investigation that would confirm the legitimacy of their operations.
That meeting concluded with an assurance that the governor’s office takes the possibility of fraud seriously and would get to the bottom of the situation. In a follow-up letter I stressed the value of being transparent, because a finding of no fraud is as important in promoting public trust as any other finding.
Months later, the silence from Ferguson’s office continues – while DCYF has had ample time to put its own spin on the audit findings.
In late May, for instance, the secretary of DCYF appeared before the agency’s oversight board to talk about the audit findings. While stating her agency welcomes audits and wants “good use” of state dollars, her comments also reflected the acceptance of mediocrity that has infected the upper reaches of the executive branch after 40-plus years of Democrat control.
A prime example is how the secretary downplayed and deflected the suggestion that overpayments could be caused by DCYF administrative errors.
“Administrative errors mean we’re just human,” she said. “They’re just mistakes.”
The solution to the questionable childcare costs, according to the agency, is more money – the place Democrats always seem to go first. That brings us back to the multibillion-dollar budget deficit on the horizon.
Ferguson followed his budget director’s shortfall warning with a social-media post stating his goals for the next state budget: Preserve core services, protect our state’s most vulnerable, don’t raise taxes, and address the structural challenges in the budget to achieve long-term financial stability and protect the state’s bond rating.
“That’s leadership,” the state’s largest newspaper declared.
I see it differently.
Ferguson had the chance to support those goals in 2025. They were central to the “$ave Washington” budget Senate Republicans proposed in response to that year’s deficit. Instead, and despite professing an aversion to more taxes, he capitulated and enabled more Democrat overspending by signing off on more than $12 billion in new and higher state and local taxes.
If the governor is serious about preserving core services, he would be equally serious about making sure agencies don’t allow money intended for those services to fall into the hands of fraudsters.
There was a time when Ferguson seemed to care about fighting fraud – like in 2019, when publicizing a lawsuit he filed as attorney general against a pair of Clark County dentists accused of overbilling Medicaid. Ferguson declared he would “not tolerate anyone defrauding those families and taxpayers” who might lose out on health-care services due to the overbilling.
The amount of overbilling by those providers was estimated at $1 million. The amount questioned by the DCYF audit is 37 times larger. Where is Ferguson’s public outrage now?
In contrast, a recent audit of King County’s human-services agency found nearly $700,000 in “questionable costs” related to support of youth programs. The county executive responded by calling the situation a systemic failure, adding that not enough was done to ensure accountability. The investigation has been escalated to pull in law enforcement and the state auditor.
Real leadership means aggressively investigating fraud, waste, or questionable spending, even when doing so might uncover poor management inside government agencies or involve politically connected communities. It requires a priority on transparency and respect for taxpayers that isn’t being seen from Democrats in Olympia.
The governor’s office needs to follow through with the full story about the DCYF childcare payments. If he and other state Democrats are unwilling to fight waste, fraud and abuse without playing favorites, then someone else needs to be in charge. That’s how our state does better.
Senator John Braun was first elected to the Washington State Senate in 2012 to represent Southwest Washington’s 20th Legislative District, which includes most of Cowlitz and Lewis counties along with parts of Clark and Thurston.
John is leader of the Senate Republican Caucus and a member of the Senate Ways & Means Committee, the Labor & Commerce Committee, and the Housing Committee.
Prior to his business career, John served on active duty in the U.S. Navy. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Washington and master’s degrees in business administration and manufacturing engineering from the University of Michigan.
He and his family reside on a small farm in rural Lewis County, outside Centralia.
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Author: Lynnwood Times Contributor
