Olympia Update No.
5 for the 2003 Legislative Session
April 4, 2003
From: Larry Ganders,
Assistant to the President
925 Plum St. SE - Building 4, P.O. Box 43165, Olympia, WA 98504-3165
Bleak outlook for universities
with Senate-passed budget
The Republican-controlled state Senate is poised today to
pass one of the worst budgets for state universities in decades, slashing more
than $33 million out of Washington State University’s current core budget over
the next two years while stretching the remaining programs to support still more
students. The Senate Ways and Means budget (Substitute Senate Bill 5404) is a
net 8.3 percent cut for WSU. While Senate Ways and Means Chair Dino Rossi,
R-Issaquah, made a late addition of $979,000 for WSU’s veterinary medicine core
program, his budget cuts about $6.8 million deeper than the 6.3 percent reductions
recommended by Gov. Gary Locke. And the Senate cuts are targeted to more
specific areas. No salary increases are provided to any state employees. The
budget provides a small recruitment and retention fund of $2.9 million to
address a tiny portion of the most serious salary inequities.
House is the final
hope for higher education. With just three weeks remaining in a scheduled
105-day legislative session, the final hopes for a better budget are left with
House Democrats, and specifically to legislators supporting House Appropriations
Chair Helen Sommers. No House budget proposal has yet been made public
Students Pay More for
Less. The Senate budget makes the assumption that all students would pay a 9
percent tuition increase for each of the next two years, and cuts funding.
Resident undergraduate students currently pay for 46 percent of the cost of
their public education, but with the cuts and tuition increases in the Senate
budget, they would now pay well over 50 percent. The WSU Budget office calculates that
even if the Board of Regents levied tuition up to the Senate budget maximum for
most students and the most that market conditions would permit for other
students, it would likely replace only about half of the Senate cut. Most
students would have to pay the full 9 percent increase in that scenario. Once
again, existing WSU students will pay substantially more
programs that are being reduced by the state. Students who take more classes than their degree requires could face
substantial penalties in the budget as it assumes passage of Engrossed
Substitute Senate Bill 5135. The Senate version of that bill would assess an
additional $5,000 per year penalty on an undergraduate student that has
accumulated more than 125 percent of the credits necessary to obtain a degree.
WSU President Lane
Rawlins and UW President Lee Huntsman held an unusual emergency meeting in
Seattle Thursday to attempt to sort out how such a budget, even with the
Senate’s proposed enrollment increases, could be implemented without
substantially reducing existing student numbers. The research university
presidents are concerned that existing programs are so heavily cut by the Senate
budget that relatively small “high demand” enrollment increases provided in the
budget will still result in net decreases in UW and WSU student numbers.
Senators have approved a $20 million enrollment pool for higher education that
WSU has argued would be better used to minimize the harsh cuts to existing
programs. There are also new instructional programs created in the budget for
WSU wine industry education and a Vancouver Engineering and Science Institute.
Sen. Larry Sheahan, R-Rosalia,
was successful in getting the Ways and Means Committee to amend the bill
Thursday night so that “non-instructional” budget cuts did not focus on
cooperative extension and libraries at WSU. However, the committee left other
harmful provisions in the budget that will soon pass the Senate.
Targets Graduate
Students. Up to $4.5 million of the $33 million cut must be made by reducing
tuition waivers at WSU. Both UW and WSU rely heavily on student waivers to
recruit quality graduate students, particularly research assistants and teaching
assistants. In many cases, if waivers are cut, graduate students may be unable
to continue their education at WSU and UW. That could also lead to declining
federal grants and contracts for research programs which rely heavily on
graduate programs. Equipment, Travel and Personal Services Contracts.
The Senate budget language also requires reductions in areas of equipment,
travel and personal service contracts which are expected to adversely impact
programs.
The Senate budget cuts
$7 million in building maintenance, which also funds about 50 WSU
maintenance employees, and proposes to bond this money in the capital
construction budget. The Senate capital budget proposal has not been released,
so the university does not have information on how these employees and the
necessary maintenance can be funded with bonded money. However, it will double
the cost of employees to fund them in the capital budget, which uses bonds sold
over a 25-year period.
