The 2023 Washington State Legislature tasked WSIPP with investigating the cost of conservation district (CD) supervisor elections under current law and two alternative policies that would place these elections on the general ballot. WSIPP was also directed to evaluate the potential non-monetary impacts of these alternative policies. To conduct this study, we collected data from all 45 CDs in Washington to summarize election costs, funding, and turnout under current law. We surveyed CD supervisors and staff about the potential impacts of the alternative policies. This final report covers our analysis of CD supervisor elections under current law and the potential monetary and non-monetary impacts of two alternative policies specified in the legislative assignment.
Under current law, CDs vary widely in the cost of their elections. From 2020–2024, total election costs ranged from a low of $50 to nearly $422,000, with a median of $2,500. CDs fund their elections in a number of ways, including state funding, flat per-parcel fees charged at the county level, or the overhead portion of grants they receive to conduct conservation programming. Turnout in CD elections is very low, with only one CD having more than 1% of its eligible voters cast ballots between 2020 and 2024.
We find that both of the alternative election policies would lead to drastic increases in election costs for most CDs. The first policy, which places CD elections on the general ballot, would have resulted in a median election cost increase of 225% per biennium from 2020–2024. This would increase to a 651% increase if primaries were required. The second policy would additionally change elections such that supervisors run for one of five zones within a CD. This policy would have been less costly but would still have led to a median cost increase of 75% over current law (338% with primaries).
CD supervisors and staff communicated that they expected more non-monetary costs than benefits to result from the alternative policies. Many districts shared that the policies could lead to more turnout in elections and engagement with CDs, but some questioned whether this would lead to increased engagement with CDs. Most districts feared the policies would lead to increased politicization of CDs and fewer resources being devoted to conservation programming.
The 2023 Washington State Legislature directed WSIPP to study the costs of conservation district (district) supervisor elections under current law and several alternative policies that would move elections to be held under the statute for general elections and other special purpose districts. WSIPP was also tasked with investigating potential non-monetary costs and benefits of these alternative policies.
This preliminary report provides a background on districts in Washington and an overview of their current election processes. We describe our efforts to collect election cost data from all conservation districts in the state. We have also assembled data on historical election turnout from the Washington State Conservation Commission (SCC) and have obtained general election cost data for each county from the Office of the Secretary of State.
The final report, which will be published in June 2025, will include our analysis of the costs of elections in each district and will estimate costs under each alternative policy specified in the study assignment. It will also contain a qualitative analysis of the potential non-monetary costs and benefits of each alternative policy based on feedback from district personnel, SCC, and other stakeholders. This preliminary report describes our plan for those analyses.
The underground construction economy (UCE) consists of all economic activities in construction that would be legal if fully reported to authorities as required. It includes employees misclassified as independent contractors or being paid under the table and independent contractors and businesses unregistered or underreporting their activity. Each type of UCE activity produces losses to workers, consumers, businesses, and state and federal government programs. Past research has found that underground activity is common in the construction industry.
We estimate the size and cost to workers, Washington state, and the federal government of Washington’s underground construction economy by year from 2011-2021. We find that an average of 14.2% of construction workers in the state are part of the UCE each year. We estimate average annual total costs to be $142.6 million to Washington construction workers, $59.8 million to the state, and $315.4 million to the federal government.
We provide an overview of the many actions taken by Washington state agencies to detect and enforce UCE activity and comment on barriers to collaboration between them. Finally, we survey common underground economy-related programs and policies in other jurisdictions that may improve the detection and enforcement of UCE activity.
In this second required report we address preliminary findings from analyses of effects of I-502 on non-monetary outcomes. We used two main analysis strategies. We examined the effect of I-502 enactment on cannabis abuse treatment admissions, comparing Washington to similar non-legalizing states before and after I-502 enactment. We also examined how local differences in the amount of legal cannabis sales affected cannabis abuse treatment admissions, youth and adult substance use, and drug-related criminal convictions.
These analyses represent an intermediate step towards the ultimate benefit-cost evaluation of I-502 that is required by the law.
It is too early in the history of I-502 to evaluate outcomes. This first required report describes the research plan for the overall study and presents preliminary data on the status of implementation of the law as of June 30, 2015. Ultimately, WSIPP’s evaluation will include a full descriptive study of implementation; an outcome study to identify causal effects of the law on a range of outcomes (e.g., substance use and abuse, health, criminal justice, traffic safety); and a benefit-cost analysis of the net economic impact of the law.
This report describes local regulations regarding medical marijuana.
We used data from the 2002 to 2011 administrations of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health to examine trends in the prevalence of current cannabis use, lifetime cannabis use, age of initiation, and cannabis abuse or dependency. We examined these trends separately for youth and adults in Washington, and also provide estimates for Colorado (the other state that has legalized recreational cannabis use) and the rest of the United States (US).
Examining trends in this manner will allow us to monitor whether the implementation of I-502 appears to affect these key indicators of marijuana use over time. Although more sophisticated analyses will be required for us to evaluate the policy, these initial trends provide a baseline to compare future data against. The prevalence of cannabis use in the past 30 days—a key indicator of the proportion of people who are current cannabis users—appears to be on the rise in recent years among both youth and adults in Washington, Colorado, and the US. The other indicators of use appear to be relatively stable or increasing slightly over time. In general, the estimates from Washington are slightly higher than the US and slightly lower than Colorado.
We will continue to monitor these trends over time within the context of our larger benefit-cost analysis to examine whether the new policy appears to affect marijuana use rates within the state.
- An examination of Oregon’s excess forest fire suppression cost insurance program and an analysis of the potential application of this model for Washington, and
- An examination of Washington’s total and marginal costs related to staffing and overtime to determine whether these total or marginal costs are in excess of market rates.
For more information, please contact John Bauer at (360) 586-2783, or bauerj@wsipp.wa.gov.
