In fact, since voter approval of Tim Eyman's Initiative 960 in November, the Legislature now has to approve all state agency fee increases -- ranging from the Hanford nuclear cleanup's mixed-waste management fee down to licensing costs for animal-massage practitioners.

Eyman's measure has cost the state's Office of Financial Management roughly $359,000 this year alone, according to OFM Deputy Director Wolfgang Opitz.

"We had to hire some folks just to do the bill tracking, review and notification. People doing nothing but chasing bills," Opitz said.

Opitz, however, did say increased government transparency was "very desirable."

I-960 was designed to add a degree of transparency to the Legislature's taxing power. But additionally, I-960 requires lawmakers to vote on any new fees or increases -- making the OFM responsible for notifying the public of any legislation doing so, as well as providing 10-year revenue projections.

"Now that they're having to take recorded votes the Democratic legislators are starting to get skittish," Eyman said. "In the past, they let the state agencies take the heat. There was no accountability -- nobody you could point to who was taking your money. If you have a system where it's easy to take more of the people's money, they're going to take more."

According to leading Democrats, the net result is a bureaucratic mess.

"It's really just burning up a lot of money and time," said Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. "A lot of people are nervous, because if you want to raise the cost of a towel at the University of Washington, we're going to have to vote on it."

Under Initiative 601, passed by voters in 1993, state agencies were already bound to keep fee increases in line with state fiscal growth unless they had the approval of the state house. Even increases that didn't require legislative approval were subject to a public hearing before going into effect, Opitz said

Now lawmakers are concerned that, by requiring a vote on fees, necessary and ordinary policy matters that are best dealt with by each agency are subject to a political process that could lead to a cut in services.

"This has created a significantly greater bureaucratic morass to deal with routine functions of government," said Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver.

"If the Legislature gets so bogged down that they don't approve fee increases, then there are could be some programs in this state that could suffer dramatically."

The prospect of the politicization of mundane fee increases under I-960 has a number of city and county governments officials worried, said Eric Johnson, assistant executive director of the Washington State Association of Counties.

Johnson said many local officials are concerned the Legislature will shirk responsibility for the increases, requiring city and county governments to levy additional taxes to cover potential shortfalls in services.