Olympia Update No 6 • March 25, 2005
Senate Budget Due
Out Monday:
Pullman
Biotechnology/Life Sciences Building In Jeopardy
From: Larry Ganders,
Assistant to the President
925 Plum St. SE - Building 4, P.O. Box 43165, Olympia, WA 98504-3165
For
a picture of the proposed Biotech/Life Sciences Bldg, go to
WSU Biotech paper.
For a printer-friendly Microsoft Word version,
click
here
State Senate leaders are expected to deal a serious setback Monday to
WSU’s decade-old plans to build a new four-story 117,210-square foot
Biotechnology/Life Sciences Building on the Pullman campus, perhaps leaving the
ultimate fate of the building up to an uncertain House.
Rumors are flying that the $57 million project will receive zero funding
in the proposed Senate capital budget which will be released around mid-day
Monday, effectively removing the linchpin from WSU’s plans to enhance its
historic world standing in biotechnology.
This action is taken despite the building’s high
ranking as number three on the priority list submitted by all six of the state’s four-year
baccalaureate institutions for 2005-2007.
The budget will be heard by the
Senate Ways and Means Committee Monday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. The budget could
pass the Senate as early as Wednesday.
With funding for the building
also being debated among leaders in the state House of Representatives, WSU‘s
highest legislative priority for new construction appears to be in real danger
of not being funded in the upcoming two years.
The Biotechnology/Life Science Building is to house many of WSU’s most
productive researchers in everything from agriculture to cancer.
These are the scientists who conduct more than $6 million per year in federally
sponsored research, and through whose collaborations with other faculty in
Richland, Pullman, Spokane and elsewhere in the system, enable more than $20
million per year in federally sponsored research. These researchers will serve
as the backbone for developing both the Riverpoint Health Sciences campus at WSU
Spokane and the WSU Bioproducts building in Tri-Cities.
Both former Gov. Gary Locke and
Gov. Christine Gregoire have recommended $45 million in funding for the
building. It was disappointing to the university that the entire $57 million was
not recommended for funding as was suggested by the state Higher Education
Coordinating Board. But the news gets worse as the budget process moves to the
Senate.
WSU Vice Provost Jim Petersen, who heads the university’s research
efforts was in Olympia Friday to talk with legislators about the building’s
fate. Also meeting with legislators in Olympia this week were Mike Skinner,
director of the Center for Reproductive Biology; Engineering Researcher Anjan
Bose, and Jim Cook, interim dean of the College of Agriculture, Human, and
Natural Resource Sciences. Bose, a distinguished professor in electric power
engineering, and Cook, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, were
honored by the full House of Representatives Friday as part of a tribute to
research. The WSU researchers told legislators that reports of no funding for
the building causes a cascading series of problems for the university system
that would result from at least a two-year delay in construction. Among those:
- It weakens the
university’s case for continuing federal funding of a similar-sized adjacent
building that will be constructed with funds provided by the federal
government. Some congressional funds have already been provided for this
project, funding that was leveraged by the promise of the state-funded Plant
Biotechnology Building (under construction) and the proposed
Biotechnology/Life Sciences Building. The three buildings are part of an
integrated complex of buildings will be the major research complex for
agricultural, human health, and other life sciences in Pullman. (This
replaces Johnson Hall.) The project has been strongly supported by the
Washington Association of Wheat Growers.
- It will delay
long-sought relief to the Pullman research university campus that has less
than half of the teaching laboratories required for hands-on learning by
undergraduate and graduate students.
- It will leave priority
WSU research projects without state-of-the art laboratory space very
important to researchers and students involved in plant breeding, plant
science, plant pathology and entomology, human and animal infectious
diseases and understanding of life processes affecting health and
performance, as well as microbial and viral genomics.
- It jeopardizes a
potential $4 million National Institute of Heath proposal, which uses the
building as matching funds.
- The delay may
adversely impact a $650,000 proposal currently pending at the Murdock
Trust. If funded, this project would be the third largest grant major
research equipment proposal funded by the Trust. This grant would develop a
Transgenic Mouse core laboratory, which is essential to a developing
Chromosome Biology collaboration between Pullman and Spokane and which must
be established before existing NIH grants received by recent WSU hires could
be moved to WSU.
- The delay will hinder
the bio-products research collaboration between Pullman and Richland
envisioned for the planned Bioproducts Research and Technology Building,
thus adversely impacting the success of the programs in that building.
- Delay will adversely
impact the collaborative bioengineering research recently funded by the Keck
Foundation. This collaborative project, involving engineering and life
science researchers, would develop new bone materials having the same
chemical and physical characteristics of the recipient’s natural bone. For
example, articulation of the planned life science complex was a significant
factor in the success of this $750K project.
- It may leave the
Pullman campus without any major state construction projects for the coming
biennium. Other construction projects being considered for funding by the
Legislature are at the Spokane and Tri-Cities campuses.
Meanwhile, fate on the building
with the state House of Representatives appears to be uncertain. Some House
members maintain that the building is vital to the university’s core mission.
But others have been working to reduce capital funding for WSU projects in this
coming biennium because the university received special funding last year for
the Academic Center Building in Spokane.
University officials have feared
for the fate of all three construction projects on its priority list as it
became apparent that legislators were not using significant amounts of new
higher education bonding authority to construct buildings on the four-year
campuses. In the governors’ budgets, that pinch led to no funding being
recommended this session for a new WSU Nursing Center in Spokane. Now, in the
critical Senate budget, it is the Biotechnology/Life Sciences building that is
in jeopardy.
WSU maintains that the real problem is inadequate capital construction
dollars are being discussed in Olympia for four-year colleges and universities.
Those assumptions make funding of all three projects much less likely, although
House Republicans indicate they have found a way to accomplish that.
In 2003 the legislature passed
the Evans-Gardner Act (RCW 28B.14H.). It authorized $772.5 million of
additional funding for higher education capital projects. The law says, “It is
the intent of the legislature that this new source of funding not displace
funding levels for the capital and operating budgets of the institutions of
higher education.” The discussions now in Olympia indicate that those funds
were displaced:
Between 1993 and 2003 the share of the state construction account (057)
and the education construction account (253) dedicated to four-year institution
capital projects ranged from 24.4 to 42 percent.
The 2005-2007 Locke budget would spend only 19.4% of those funds on four-year
college projects. Even with the additional Evans-Gardner funds the percentage
increases to just 24.5%.
For more information call: Larry Ganders, Assistant to the
President, 360-956-2165
