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Olympia Update No. 13 for the 2002 Legislative Session
March 22, 2002

From: Larry Ganders, Assistant to the President 
925 Plum St. SE - Building 4, P.O. Box 43165, Olympia, WA 98504-3165
Click Here, For the latest status of legislation affecting WSU

 

WSU recruitment & retention efforts
are an unwitting pawn of veto politics.

Gov. Gary Locke, reportedly peeved that House members refused to pass an agreed-to liquor tax increase at the end of the legislative session, is still considering a veto of recruitment and retention funds passed by the Legislature, according to his budget staff. The governor will be meeting with his budget staff next week to capture about $30 million through vetoes of bills and budget provisions to make up for the lost liquor tax revenues.

The vulnerable funding for universities is contained within the supplemental operating budget, Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6387. Locke has until Saturday, April, 6, to complete his vetoes of the budget. The possible veto puts WSU and other public universities squarely in the cross-fire of a post-session political feud between the executive branch and House leadership over the missed liquor tax vote. Simultaneously, the issue is twisted around the debate over what should be the unrestricted state cash reserves for all of state government.

 Locke’s staff indicates they were within two votes of passing a $40 million liquor tax proposal on the final day of session but the House completed the session without acting. The proposed veto is seen as a way to add $6 million, taken from higher education, to the state’s cash reserves and plug part of liquor revenues that the governor had been counting on.

At risk for Washington State University is $1,726,000 for Quality Programs.

 The funding for fiscal year 2003 is provided “solely for” competitively-offered recruitment and retention salary adjustments for faculty and staff. With no cost-of-living increases provided in the budget for university employees, these funds were provided by legislative budget negotiators as a way to address the most severe salary problems at the university. WSU believes the funding is crucial to retaining faculty members or other key employees whose salaries are far below market rates.

University funding was cut substantially in the supplemental budget, a seven percent reduction at WSU. So this funding is the lynch pin to maintaining many quality academic research and instruction programs at the institution. In a letter received by the governor this week, WSU President Lane Rawlins joined with presidents of all of the state’s public four-year universities in urging the governor to preserve the funding and not veto subsections of the bill providing recruitment and retention monies. “While other states are experiencing similar problems” with budget cuts, the presidents reported to the governor that “competition for the best and brightest has heightened dramatically.”

Budget language makes recruitment & retention provisions vulnerable.

 Attorneys say it is the language that earmarks funding “solely for” recruitment and retention that makes this funding vulnerable in the budget. Courts have held that if the governor vetoes a “solely for” provision, then the agency or university loses that funding. It becomes money that can go into the state’s reserve.

Clearly, in recent years, vetoes in the budget have become more complicated for the governor. Previous governors were able to delete words or phrases and change appropriations dramatically. Now, they are often limited to deleting entire sections or distinct appropriations of the budget. But when dealing with a subsection, the words “solely for” signal the ability of the governor to veto the appropriation and capture the funding in the state reserve. That makes the recruitment and retention monies a sitting duck.

 Governor Locke has been a recruitment and retention fund supporter.

 There are no reports of anyone on the governor’s policy or fiscal staff being hostile to the recruitment and retention funding, they just see it as one of the few ways to highlight consequences to House leadership, and try to replace many of the lost liquor revenues to increase the state reserve. Initiative 601, approved by the voters in 1997, have sometimes tied the governor’s hands in trying to increase reserves. The initiative provides that if savings are made administratively by the governor, such as by laying off state employees, the funds would go into an Education Construction Account. That doesn’t help the fiscal problem the governor will try to address.

 In addition, the Legislature fashioned a Washington State University budget this biennium that is largely veto-proof. The university has received a biennial appropriation of $396.8 million with only four subsections of the bill. Subsection four, which deals with recruitment and retention, is the only subsection that can be vetoed without deleting all funding to the institution.

The governor does have alternatives.

However, there are alternatives that the governor can also consider without endangering the quality of university programs.

• There are other sections of the budget and bills that contain appropriations that can be vetoed.
• The governor could trust that an improving state economy would make the vetoes unnecessary.
• Or the governor could choose to rely on the budget’s $300 million state reserve to cover the balance.

Few other vetoes affecting higher education appear to be under consideration.

The governor has already signed 25 bills passed by the Legislature.

The faculty collective bargaining measure, requiring a faculty senate to be abolished before bargaining can begin, is also being analyzed for a partial or full veto by the governor.

Climate and energy center legislation (Engrossed Substitute House Bill 2326), that would designate WSU’s Cooperative Extension Program, as a leading resource in state climate change issues, is being considered for a veto because the executive branch resists putting university programs in statute.