In addition to the State General Fund, which may be expended for any lawful purpose, the state maintains several hundred accounts dedicated to particular statutory purposes. These accounts generally fall into one of the three following categories:

• accounts located in the State Treasury, which require appropriation by the Legislature;
• accounts held in the custody of the State Treasurer, which may or may not require legislative appropriation; and
• accounts located in state agencies and institutions of higher education, known as local accounts, which may require approval by the Office of Financial Management.

Accounts are generally created in policy bills for the purpose of dedicating moneys in the account for the policy purposes of the bill.  Accounts are also created in omnibus appropriation bills to dedicate funding for specific purposes and appropriations.  Expenditures from dedicated accounts are limited to the purposes defined in law, and therefore, legislative action is required to temporarily or permanently expand or further restrict the purposes of a dedicated account.

The following three accounts are revised:

• the Manufacturing Cluster Acceleration Subaccount of the economic development strategic reserve is revised as a separate account;
• the Driver Licensing Technology Support Subaccount of the highway safety fund is revised as separate account; and
• the Energy Efficiency Account is revised for the 2021-2023 fiscal biennium, to allow moneys to be used for loans, loan guarantees, and grants for projects that achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries.

The following five accounts created or revised in the 2021-23 omnibus operating appropriation bill are reenacted: 

• Forest Resiliency Account;
• Washington Rescue Plan Transition Account;
• Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund;
• COVID-19 Public Health Response Account; and 
• Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief III Account

The Clean Energy Transition Workforce Account is created to provide dedicated funding to support workers who are affected by the state's transition away from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy and associated program administrative expenses.

PRO:  This is a good government bill to clean up some statutes and to create a few accounts related to policy bills.