This is the sad history of the Washington State Public Works Trust Fund. In December, 1983, a Washington State Public Works report concluded that there were over 4 billion dollars of urgently needed local government public works projects in Washington state. They further found that local governments were able to finance less than half of these projects. Therefore in 1985, the Washington State legislature established the Washington State Public Works Trust Fund (which was also known as the Public Works Assistance Account or PWAA).
https://leg.wa.gov/CodeReviser/documents/sessionlaw/1985c446.pdf?cite=1985%20c%20446%20%C2%A7%2011
From 1986 to 2016, the Washington State Public Works Trust Fund was a revolving account that was used by local governments such as cities and counties to fund more than $2.8 billion dollars in 2,000 public works projects at an extremely low interest rate of one to two percent. The agency is/ was self sustaining and cost effective. This agency was the closest thing Washington State had to a Public Bank or a Public Trust.
https://www.washingtonpublicbankcoalition.org/how-the-washington-public-trust-can-save-the-2017-legislature/2-how-the-public-trust-can-save-the-public-works-trust-fund
Sadly, from 2005 to the present, the Washington state legislature has repeatedly swept or diverted hundreds of millions of dollars from the Public Works Trust Fund. These hundreds of millions of dollars were basically used to pay for the so-called Boeing and Microsoft Tax Breaks. This transfer was therefore robbing funds from local governments to pay two wealthy international corporations. This transfer made it much more expensive for local governments to finance local public works projects. The removal of this funding for Public Works projects is certain to result in system failures all across our state which will harm public health and safety for years to come.