The Governor announced this morning that legislators have reached an agreement “in principle” on an operating budget for 2017-2019.

Many of you, perhaps more than 3,000 DOC Teamsters, received notice from the Department that you will be laid off if the legislature is unable to reach an agreement over an operating budget for the coming biennium.

Teamster Jessica Poston, a counselor at the Washington Corrections Center for Women, joined several other state employees who spoke at a rally the Western State Hospital in Lakewood today.

A government shutdown is becoming a very real possibility. If the legislature does not pass a budget by June 30, thousands of corrections employees could get laid off.

How a government shutdown will impact Teamsters at the Dept of Corrections

We are already a week into the second special session of the legislature and no budget deal is in sight.

I want to update you on where things stand with the budget in Olympia. We had some good news during the regular legislative session when both the House and Senate included funding for our DOC contract in their budget proposals. The Governor had released his budget earlier, which also proposed funding our contract.

Today, the Republican State Senate released its 2017-2019 biennial state budget proposal, and there was good, bad and ugly news.

Now that we’ve reached the midpoint of legislative session, it's a good time for an update on policy issues that impact working families.

Terrie Matsen works at the Stafford Creek Corrections Center and has served the state for 25 years. She started out as an AC Cook at the Clallam Bay Corrections Center, transferred to the Olympic Corrections Center in Forks for a year, and now works in the mailroom at Stafford Creek.