Today's headlines:
- Spokane will accept a DOJ grant in spite of requirements attached that opponents worry would put SPD in conflict with state law.
- One former state trooper and current Washington senator wants more requirements for law enforcement leaders. Some sheriffs aren't fans of the idea.
- Microsoft attempts to assuage community concerns over a data center in central Washington.
- Idaho's Economic Outlook committee is more optimistic about the state's fiscal future than the governor.
- Spokane Colleges will develop Indigenous knowledge-focused centers with new grant.
And KUOW politics reporter Scott Greenstone joins to talk about some of the topics dominating the conversation as the Washington legislative session gets underway.
- - -
SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting contributed by Eliza Billingham, Doug Nadvornick, Monica Nickelsburg, James Dawson, Steve Jackson, Scott Greenstone and Owen Henderson.
The show is hosted and produced by Owen Henderson.
- - -
TRANSCRIPT:
[THEME MUSIC]
OWEN HENDERSON: From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s January 16, 2026.
On today’s show, Spokane is going ahead with accepting a federal grant that would let it hire more police officers.
City officials say they weighed concerns over the conditions in the grant but want residents to benefit from their own tax dollars.
And Microsoft is making commitments to address community worries about its data center in central Washington.
Plus, a conversation with Washington political reporter Scott Greenstone. We’ll look ahead at some of the big issues expected to dominate the legislative session that began this week in Olympia.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
[FADE OUT THEME]
Spokane City Council accepted a million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Justice yesterday to help hire new police officers.
The council members who voted for it touted their decision as an act of resistance against the federal government.
SPR’s Eliza Billingham reports.
ELIZA BILLINGHAM: The grant will fund eight police officers specifically focused on reducing gun violence.
No one questioned that intent. But some community members voiced their concern over the strings attached.
Many felt certain grant conditions put immigration data at risk and put the Spokane Police Department in the crosshairs of a federal versus state legal battle.
But the five council members who supported it, including newcomer Kate Telis, said Spokane shouldn’t let uncertainty keep citizens from benefitting from their own tax dollars.
KATE TELIS: “I believe that demanding courts to work through this is how we get out of our constitutional crisis. This is a type of protest in itself. The president cannot bully us with these conditions and we will not capitulate to the Trump administration. These are your tax dollars.”
EB: Councilmembers Michael Cathcart and Sarah Dixit voted against accepting the grant.
Police Chief Kevin Hall told City Council that the city legal team as well as an opinion from Washington’s attorney general maintain the SPD can receive the grant and remain in compliance with state law.
I’m Eliza Billingham, reporting.
— — —
OH: A Washington legislator and retired state trooper wants to ensure police chiefs and sheriffs meet many of the same eligibility standards as the people they supervise.
Snohomish County Democrat John Lovick introduced his bill yesterday during a meeting of the Senate Law and Justice Committee.
JOHN LOVICK: “This legislation ensures that anyone with the authority to detain, arrest or use deadly force is highly trained, well prepared and professional.”
OH: Lovick’s bill would add new requirements for chiefs, sheriffs and city marshals.
Those include a stretch of at least five consecutive years of full-time law enforcement work.
If officials don’t maintain state certifications, they could lose their jobs, even if they’re elected by constituents.
Several county sheriffs, including Adams County’s Dale Wagner, objected.
DALE WAGNER: “All the sheriffs who are voted into their positions are voted by their public, the people that want that person there. The voters made that decision to put that person into that authoritarian position, to make decisions based on their community.”
OH: The bill would also restrict some of the duties that volunteers and police cadets are allowed to perform.
— — —
Some communities are pushing back against the AI-driven data center boom.
This week, Microsoft announced new commitments to address some of those concerns.
KUOW’s Monica Nickelsburg has more.
MONICA NICKELSBURG: Quincy is a small farming town in Central Washington.
LISA KARSTETTER: “ This is where your french fries come from.”
MN: “Right next to the data center.”
LK: “Yeah. All of that back there on the backside is Microsoft.”
That’s Lisa Karstetter, Microsoft’s data center liaison in the area.
And Microsoft is hoping french fries aren’t the only thing that gets exported from Quincy.
At a launch event in the other Washington, Microsoft President Brad Smith said Quincy could be a model for communities across the country.
BRAD SMITH: “ We will add to the tax base that funds your local hospitals, your schools, and no place better illustrates this than the small town where Microsoft built its first data center. If you want to visit the nicest high school in the state of Washington, you don't go to the neighborhood where Microsoft's headquarters is based. You don't go next door to Amazon, you go to Quincy.”
MN: Under the plan, Microsoft pledged not to accept tax breaks for data centers.
It’ll ask utilities to charge rates high enough to cover its energy use and grid improvements.
And Microsoft plans to scale technology that recycles water used for cooling.
In Quincy, data centers get hydropower from the Columbia River.
In other places, critics worry the boom will increase our dependence on fossil fuels.
Monica Nickelsburg.
— — —
OH: After dragging their feet last session, Idaho lawmakers are quickly moving to adopt a revenue forecast ahead of setting budgets.
James Dawson reports.
JAMES DAWSON: The recommendation from the Economic Outlook and Revenue Assessment Committee is more optimistic than the governor that Idaho will rake in more tax revenue in the coming fiscal year.
They peg that number at about $5.82 billion, which is nearly $150 million higher than the Little administration believes.
Republican Rep. Josh Tanner says it’s a middle of the road approach.
JOSH TANNER: “I don’t think that is pushing us [to one side or the other]. I don’t think it’s going to leave us with a ton of money on the bottom line, nor do I think it’s going to leave us massively short.”
JD: Tanner, who’s the new co-chair of the state’s budget committee, will take up the proposal this morning.
Once adopted, the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee will use that revenue target to begin shaping Idaho’s newest spending plan.
James Dawson, Boise State Public Radio.
— — —
OH: Two Indigenous knowledge-focused centers are on their way to Spokane Falls Community College and the Spokane Community College Inchelium campus.
A grant from Avista Utilities is providing the seed money for the “Indigenous Healing Environments Across Lifeways”—or IHEAL—Centers.
They’ll hold workshops on sustainability of water, land, animals and climate, as well as how to use native plants for food and medicine.
Spokane Colleges’ Tribal Relations Director Naomi Bender says she’ll be looking for Indigenous instructors from tribes in the region for classes that will be open to both Indigenous and non-Native students.
She anticipates they’ll begin holding workshops in about a year.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
The Washington legislature alternates between 105-day sessions in odd years and 60-day sessions in even years.
It's 2026, so lawmakers are working on a much shorter timeline than last year, but there are still quite a few issues that legislators are hoping to address during the session that started this week.
With me now to talk about some of those issues is Scott Greenstone. He covers politics for our partner station KUOW in Seattle, where he also co-hosts Sound Politics.
Scott, thanks for joining me.
SCOTT GREENSTONE: Hey, thanks for having me.
OH: So one of the issues that has already gotten so much attention in the lead-up to this session is the state budget. The state is projected to end fiscal year 2027 $2.3 billion in the red.
I think it's fair to say that the Republicans, the Democrats, and Governor Bob Ferguson are all on slightly different pages when it comes to addressing the issue. So what are some of the sticking points?
SG: Yeah, I think you're right. Governor Ferguson has moved a little bit more onto the Democrats' page than he was last year when he really pushed back against any raising of taxes and anything like that, but then eventually signed a bunch of new tax hikes and tax tweaks into law.
The sticking points are that he wants to use the state's reserves to fill some of these holes, and he also wants to use money raised by the Climate Commitment Act and put it towards things that are not related to climate work, but more the Washington family tax credit. So a tax credit for low-income Washington families.
Those are some of the sticking points that Democrats are kind of looking at and saying, I don't know if we should do all that.
The Republicans are a lot less optimistic than they were last year when they were hoping that Governor Ferguson would prove an ally. They are more sort of saying, we cannot raise taxes like Governor Ferguson wants to do.
They would like to cut some of the bureaucratic funding. They've talked about middle management, particularly in agencies like the Department of Children, Youth, and Families.
OH: And Governor Bob Ferguson is now supporting a kind of an income tax, but just for some of the wealthiest Washingtonians. Walk me through that proposal.
SG: Yeah, so it sounds like what Democrats want to do is tax folks who make more than a million dollars a year.
And they're calling it a millionaire's tax, but I don't want to get too technical.
A millionaire is technically someone whose assets are more than a million.
This is someone who makes more than a million dollars in a year. Almost 10%, about 9.9% of that income would be taxed.
OH: Aside from spending issues, there's a lot else going on during this 60-day session. A number of bills have already been filed dealing specifically with immigration and immigration enforcement.
Let's talk about a few of the big ones, starting with one that, as we record, is being discussed by the Senate Law and Justice Committee, a mask ban for law enforcement.
SG: Yeah, this is one that Governor Ferguson says he wants to see on his desk and sign into law right away.
This is really not a response to the shooting in Minneapolis by an ICE officer that was caught on tape of Renee Good.
But it certainly has gotten a lot of focus because of that. This one was certainly something that Democrats were proposing before that.
It would essentially not allow law enforcement, ICE officers, to cover their faces particularly, but also do a number of other things to obscure that they are law enforcement officers.
There's another one that I've been kind of following. One really interesting thing is that the state, though it's run by Democrats who are very critical of ICE, it actually invests state pension money, and in fact now some of our own tax dollars, money taken out of our payroll for long-term care, it invests that money in a number of different private businesses, including GEO Group, which runs the Northwest detention facility in Tacoma that ICE uses to incarcerate or hold people.
It's been a very controversial facility, especially among Democrats. We invest in the owning company, GEO Group, and there are Democrats who want to stop us from doing that. So that's another proposal I'm watching.
OH: Brian Heywood is a name that should be pretty familiar for people who follow Washington politics. He's a conservative activist. He's backed a number of ballot measures in the past. He's back with a couple more initiatives. Before we talk about why that has to do with the legislature, do you mind telling me what those initiatives are?
SG: Brian Heywood is a hedge fund manager who has sort of developed this machine that is able to gather lots of signatures.
In 2024, there were a number of initiatives that he supported to repeal things like the capital gains tax and the Climate Commitment Act.
Those mostly lost, but he is back with two more that Democrats are definitely treating with kid gloves.
One of them would give parents access to a number of school curricula, but particularly mental health counseling records that a lot of LGBTQ advocates say could out gay teens.
Say you come out to your school counselor and then your parents find out from those records.
Another one would seek to keep trans girls out of girls sports. So Democrats basically got a bunch of signatures from Heywood.
Now they can do a couple of things. They can pass them into law, but they likely will not do that. In fact, I think the leaders of the House and Senate said they won't.
Or they can let them go before the people on the ballot. And that is most likely what they're going to do.
So that is why they are not holding hearings on these initiatives.
Neither of them are things that have support with many Democrats, certainly many in the legislature.
And it's just something that I think Democrats want to see what the voters say.
OH: Scott Greenstone covers politics for our partner station KUOW, where he also co-hosts the program Sound Politics.
Scott, thanks for joining me.
SG: Hey, thanks for having me.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Eliza Billingham, Doug Nadvornick, Monica Nickelsburg, James Dawson, Steve Jackson, Scott Greenstone and me, Owen Henderson. I’m also the host and producer.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
