SENATE RECOMMENDS $100 MILLION WSU CAPITAL BUDGET
BUT SLOWS SPOKANE ACADEMIC BUILDING AT RIVERPOINT
The recent earthquake didn`t shake the Senate`s commitment to a $100 million
capital construction budget for WSU. But the budget, approved by both
Democratic and Republican senators, did send some shock waves through WSU`s
equipment budget and its Spokane programs. The Senate unexpectedly omitted
$2.27 million for design of a new building to unify WSU Spokane at the
Riverpoint campus and cut $4 million from the university`s equipment budget.
It surprised many by accelerating an addition to the building that houses
WSU`s College of Nursing and the Intercollegiate Center for Nursing
Education, skipping over five higher priority projects on WSU`s request
list.
Most of the rest of the WSU system fared well in the Senate budget
despite the demands added by the recent Olympia earthquake. Attention now
turns to the state House of Representatives.
Construction projects approved by the Senate for Pullman by the Senate include
- $23 million for a new Energy
Plant
- $10.9 million for the renovation of the Murrow Communications
Building
- $10.6 million for a new Shock Physics Building and renovation of
some Webster classrooms.
The work of many outside constituencies paid off by
securing $3.5 million to design a Plant Biosciences addition to Johnson
Hall.
For WSU Vancouver, the Senate gave the green light to a $15.9 million
Media/Electronic Communications Building and agreed to provide design monies
for a new Student Service Building.
Gov. Gary Locke also recommended these
projects.
SENATE BUDGET SLIGHTLY UNDER LOCKE PROPOSAL.
The Senate, in a budget authored by Senate Ways and Means Chair Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, and Sen.
Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, is recommending about $5.4 million less
for WSU than Locke. The biggest difference is elimination of design for the
proposed Spokane building in the coming biennium, which could have
positioned the $45 million project for construction at Riverpoint in 2004.
It would be up to future Legislatures to get the design project on schedule
again and even then, construction may have to wait until 2006 and may not be
completed before 2008. This is the latest in a long line of setbacks for
this project over the last decade as WSU has struggled to move its students
and faculty from leased space in the downtown Metropolitan Mortgage Building
to the Riverpoint Campus.
WSU classes and student services are currently
split between the downtown building and the Riverpoint Campus, creating many
logistical problems for students and faculty. The nursing building is
located off the Riverpoint campus, near Spokane Falls Community College. The
Senate provided $1.036 million in additional pre-design and design funds to
accelerate the $10.1 million project, apparently to address the pressing
nursing shortage in the state.
EXPANDED WSU-EWU LIBRARY, EXPANDED CLASSROOM SPACE AFFECTED BY SPOKANE DELAY
Classroom space for WSU Spokane is full during the peak evening hours and
the Spokane building was expected to relieve some of that pressure. A delay
of the project will also put on hold the expansion of the Cooperative
Academic Library System or CALS. CALS is a joint library serving the
downtown students of Eastern Washington University and WSU Spokane. The
collection contains more than 10,000 books and 400 journals but is currently
housed in temporary space.
SENATE DECIDES THAT STATE ARCHIVES SHOULD BE LOCATED IN THE RIVERPOINT AREA
In another unexpected development, the state Senate decided that the
Secretary of State should locate a new state archives facility in Spokane. A
proposal two years ago to build a joint facility for the archives and the
CALS Library was turned down by the governor and not considered much by
legislators. A revised one-story building without the CALS component was
submitted this year for location at Eastern Washington University in Cheney.
It had the support of WSU. Early proposals suggested a partnership with the
new Inland Northwest Technology Education Center (INTEC) but legislators
have decided to provide no capital for that project.
The Senate budget has now moved the project to Spokane after Brown added clarifying language that
the facility should be "at or in the proximity of" the Riverpoint Campus.
PROPOSAL FOR CLEVELAND HALL EDUCATION ADDITION CONTINUES TO STRUGGLE
The
Senate did not fund the construction of the $10.2 million addition to
Pullman`s Cleveland Hall, continuing a pattern which started with the Higher
Education Coordinating Board`s priority list and the governor`s budget. This
means it will be up to the state House of Representatives to make it an
issue in this legislative session.
If the House budget does not fund
Cleveland, it`s a virtual certainty that the project must be delayed for at
least two years. Cleveland Hall is the university`s fourth highest priority
and has received funding from the Legislature four years ago for pre-design
and two years ago for design. But just as it moved into the construction
phase, it found itself on the bubble. WSU has argued that the building will
provide critical capacity that will allow the College of Education to grow.
The proposed addition is almost exclusively classroom space.
SENATE CUTS GOVERNOR`S RECOMMENDED FUNDING FOR EQUIPMENT
A proposal approved
by the governor for $8 million of WSU`s land grant trust proceeds to be used
for purchasing new equipment at the university was cut in half by the
Senate, which recommended $4 million. This would greatly restrict the
ability to meet instructional and research needs.
This update is shared by broadcast fax and electronic mail to friends of
Washington State University as government developments occur. Contact
Michelle Delaney, WSU Government Relations, 509/335-6292 to be added to the
list. Call Larry Ganders at 360/956-2165; From WSU Campuses, Dial 8-2165.
e-mail: Ganders@energy.wsu.edu . Contact
Jane Yung Dennie in Olympia at 360/956/2164. For federal issues, contact
Kristi Growdon at 206/219/2424. For state bill status and other government
info, visit our improved web page at www.olympia.wsu.edu.
