Will Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson sign or veto a pile of tax bills and a state budget dependent on them? It’s anyone’s guess.

Lawmakers, lobbyists and business leaders are all watching to see what the governor does. Ferguson, just four months on the job, is aware of the acute interest and seems determined to keep folks in suspense right up until May 20. 

That’s the appointed deadline for him to act — or not act — on a new two-year operating budget and the pieces of a $9.4 billion tax package on which it is balanced, as well as a multibillion-dollar transportation revenue bill containing a 6-cent increase in the state’s gas tax.

“You’ll hear on (May 20),” Ferguson said as he walked through a parking lot at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey.  “It’s a work in progress. Each day, we make some decisions and delay others. Some are a little more complicated, so we’ll keep talking.”

Pressed on whether lawmakers should be planning to return in summer to deal with his decisions, Ferguson smiled. “I can’t give anything away. I want to keep people guessing,” he said.

The Washington State Standard caught up with the first-term Democrat after he addressed 250 people at the Thurston County Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting.

Ferguson didn’t provide them any clues either, saying only that he’s busy going through “the many bills that need to be signed or vetoed” and has until May 20 “to essentially sign the budget or make any vetoes I think are appropriate.”

Ferguson didn’t delve into specific budget decisions except to laud the Legislature for putting his requested $100 million law enforcement hiring grant program in the spending plan. But he did tell the crowd he was surprised it “took so much work” to get it through.

It’s not to the finish line. Those dollars are in House Bill 2015, which he’s yet to sign.

He warned, as he has before, spending cuts are made throughout the budget and some taxes are needed to help overcome a shortfall he pegged at $16 billion over four years.

“There are going to be increased taxes,” he said. “There was no way to cut your way out of a $16 billion shortfall. So there’s going to have to be a balance there.”

With tax hikes on the horizon, he acknowledged, “It is becoming unaffordable for a lot of Washingtonians.”

“Anything that the government does that makes life less affordable is a concern,” he said. “Philosophically speaking, these are your dollars and my job is to spend them as efficiently as possible.”