House Operating Budget
Olympia Update No.
9 for the 2003 Legislative Session
April 28, 2003, Updated
From: Larry Ganders,
Assistant to the President
925 Plum St. SE - Building 4, P.O. Box 43165, Olympia, WA 98504-3165
SPECIAL
SESSION
BEGINS
MAY 12
The regular 105-day session of the 2003 Legislature came to a close (sine die)
at about 11:40 p.m. Sunday night without final passage of a biennial operating
or capital construction budget for WSU. Those votes will now come during a
special session of the Legislature that the governor has officially called for
May 12, two weeks away. For practical purposes, the work of the Legislature
will be continuing between now and May 12 in a manner consistent with the early
days of a special session. Top legislative leaders and their staff will attempt
to settle differences between the House and the Senate so that members may vote
on final compromise budgets when they return May 12. At his press conference
calling the special session, Gov. Locke expressed a strong interest in how the
final budgets will fund capacity for enrollment at higher education
institutions. He specifically referenced UW and WSU as "engines" for
the state economy.
The
House clearly provided a better budget for the research universities:
HOUSE SURGES FORWARD WITH $19
MILLION MORE FOR WSU THAN SENATE;
Appropriations Chair Helen Sommers and fellow majority Democrats pushed through
the state House of Representatives a revised operating budget funding WSU $19
million more than the state Senate with a smaller (six percent per year) tuition
increase for undergraduate students and 2 percent salary increases late next
year.
The
Seattle legislator’s revised budget proposal finally cleared the
Democratic-controlled House on a 52-46 vote at about 7 p.m. Saturday night. The
vote added some crucial lubrication to a legislative process that appeared to
have seized from the political friction in the debates over taxes and salaries.
It
took until late on the 104th day of the 105-day regular session, when
a previously-fractured Democratic majority unified and rallied behind a biennial
operating budget plan for the first time this year.
A
capital budget (House Bill 1165) still lacking Cleveland Hall and Spokane
Academic Center funding, also passed the House Sunday afternoon by a
surprisingly wide 91-7 margin. Related bonds bills also passed by very large
margins.
Also
approved was a transportation budget with a five-cent per gallon gasoline tax
that could move work ahead on many projects across the state, including
improving the Pullman-Moscow highway.
The
operating budget action boosts hopes among colleges and universities that the
state’s $2.7 billion deficit could be survived without the deep Senate-proposed
program cuts and with the more manageable House reductions that protect core
programs. The House version of the higher education budget was immediately
endorsed over the Senate plan by the News Tribune newspaper from Tacoma on
Sunday’s editorial page. The House votes finally assure negotiations between
Senate leaders and House leaders to resolve differing versions of the operating,
capital and transportation budget bills.
But
the late surge of legislative progress may only be temporary and the cogs could
be grinding to a halt again. Ahead may lie a special legislative session with
additional fits and starts.
The contrasting versions of the WSU budget
is only one example of some substantial differences that separate the House and
Senate. The total WSU biennial
appropriation in the House version of the budget bill (Engrossed Substitute
Senate Bill 5404) is $382 million, representing a 3.5 percent cut from the
current biennium. The Senate budget provided about $362.8 million, representing
an 8.3 percent cut, according to budget summaries released by House staff
Sunday.
The Senate budget earmarks funding for
specific new programs in viticulture/enology and technology for the Vancouver
area. The House budget protects core programs without substantial enrollment
growth for the research universities.
The House budget provides $1.521 million for WSU veterinary
medicine core funding. Earlier versions tied some of the increase to the tax
package, this latest House-passed budget does not. The Senate provided $979,000.
Among more fundamental differences, the House
budget assumes tax increases and new state gambling games, though earlier
proposals of general sales tax hikes were abandoned to garner the necessary
votes for House passage. The Senate steadfastly opposes tax increases. The House
supports general employee salary increases. The Senate does not.
The operating bill differs somewhat from
the original House proposal unveiled by Sommers. First, it provides only a
single cost-of-living adjustment to all state employees of two percent, not
effective until September of next year. The original proposal had additional
increases for school teachers and community college faculty. The House proposal
increases tuition for resident undergraduate students at 6 percent per year, the
previous version was five percent (The Senate assumes 9 percent.) WSU would not
realize any of the additional 1 percent collected in tuition, as that was
captured in a new budget cut. Also, the House now adopts the Senate approach of
shifting building maintenance and operation costs to the capital construction
budget, work that has historically been done in the operating budget. The House
version of the capital construction budget provides $8 million in maintenance
funds to WSU while the Senate budget provided $7 million.
Tax increases are necessary to fund the
House operating budget. A key House revenue bill, HB 2267, passed the House
after 10 p.m. Saturday night with the bare minimum required, 50-48. The revenue
proposal includes a provision to charge sales tax on candy and gum, imposes
stiffer penalties for businesses that do not pay taxes in full, increases liquor
taxes, and shortens the unclaimed property holding period from five years to
three years.
Before voting on this latest proposal, the
House rejected a “go home” striking amendment offered by Republicans that would
have adopted the Senate budget with some relatively minor revisions and likely
led to quick adjournment of the Legislature. Sommers told members that the
Senate budget hurt foster care, health care, K-12 and "brutally cuts higher
education...." In a relatively cordial but lengthy debate, House Republicans
charged that the Sommers proposal raises taxes exclusively to give pay increases
to state employees.
There are some areas of agreement.
The
House budget provides $949,000 in the first year and $1,927,000 in the second
year for WSU faculty recruitment and retention, the same amount as provided by
the Senate. Floor debate Saturday indicated that there not only will be a
pending special legislative session but lawmakers may convene later this year to
deal with unfinished non-budget issues.
Sorely missing
from legislative wrangling in the coming days is Senate Majority Leader Jim
West, R-Spokane, who will leave the capitol to undergo surgery for colon cancer.
The diagnosis stunned his many friends and colleagues in Olympia and across the
state. West has been a legislator who supports higher education and the Cougars
look forward to his quick return to the political arena, perhaps on May 12.
