Olympia Update No 10 • April 23
Olympia Update No 10 •
April 23, 2005
Revised at 11:50 p.m.
From: Larry Ganders,
Assistant to the President
925 Plum St. SE - Building 4, P.O. Box 43165, Olympia, WA 98504-3165
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104th-day status of high-priority bills tracked by WSU,
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2005-2007
conference operating budget:
House &
Senate agree to WSU budget
that adds 905 students with
a dedicated tax;
Funds
Vancouver & Tri-Cities freshmen, employee salaries,
And cuts $2.1
million in existing university programs
House and Senate
conference committee members announced an operating budget agreement this
morning that provides $429.5 million to WSU during the next biennium, increases
faculty salaries Sept. 1, cuts non-instructional programs by $2.1 million,
provides funding for 905 new full-time students to the WSU system, begins
funding four-year programs at WSU Vancouver and WSU Tri-Cities, adds $1.5 million for veterinary
medicine, and increases student tuition up to 7 percent.
“The House and Senate have
an agreement and we are very pleased about it,” House Appropriations Chair Helen
Sommers, D-Seattle, announced prior to the signing of the conference committee
report on Senate Bill 6090 this morning. Heading up the negotiations from the
Senate side was Ways and Means Chairman Margarita Prentice, D-Seattle. Also very
important players in the negotiations were two traditional WSU advocates, Rep.
Bill Fromhold, D-Vancouver, and Sen. Mark Doumit, D-Cathlamet.
This budget proposal
seems on track to pass the Legislature, as early as today, but most likely by
Sunday. Controversy over proposed
gas tax increases to fund the transportation budget now appear to be the
greatest obstacle to adjournment this weekend. The final conference committee
report for higher education’s operating budget represented a compromise between
the House’s budget, considered one of the most favorable for higher education in
years, and the Senate budget. The Senate budget took back $14.6 million in
increased tuition that WSU students would pay but increased financial aid to
needy students. The term used to describe this tuition offset in Olympia is
“claw back” and it was opposed by all of the state’s four-year baccalaureate
institutions. WSU argued that if students must pay more tuition, the funding
should fund the programs at the institution they are attending, not pay for
programs historically provided by the state general fund.
The final conference
budget took back or “clawed back” only $2.7 million of that tuition increase,
about one-fourth of the additional resident undergraduate students pay, a huge
improvement over the Senate position. The final budget still provided a $70
million increase in student financial aid statewide, less than the Senate’s
$108.4 million increase, but more than the House funding level of $33.5 million.
The greatest
disappointment for higher education advocates was that the Senate’s 1% cut to
so-called non-instructional programs was retained in the final conference
report. This will adversely impact
existing WSU budgets in research, extension, libraries, student services,
academic support, physical plant, and administration.
However, the employee
salary increases and the funding of new enrollments at substantially better
rates than the Senate had recommended were consistent with the joint legislative
messages delivered jointly by the University of Washington and Washington State
University to protect essential core funding.
Many attribute the need
for the reduced “claw back” and non-instructional cut to the Senate’s desire to
improve student financial aid.
Nevertheless, Sommers
indicated the overall conference budget did look a whole lot better than what
might have been expected when the Legislature convened in January with a $1.7
billion deficit in funding. Later came two court decisions that threatened to
reduce state spending by another $500 million.
“Things did look pretty
gloomy,” Prentice confirmed. But the conferees stressed that they handled the
situation and made improvements to areas like higher education without “general
tax increases” such as on sales or property.
Controversial tax
dedicated to higher education enrollments.
Most of the enrollment increases were tied directly to an inheritance or “death
tax” proposal that replaced part of the tax that was ruled unconstitutional in
court earlier this year. Funds from the tax go into “The Education Legacy
Trust Account.” That dedicated fund source is unprecedented for higher
education but drew sharp opposition from some legislators, including some of the
strongest advocates for universities in the Legislature such as Rep. Don Cox.
R-Colfax. Opponents passionately protested on the floors of the House and the
Senate that the tax on estates of $1.5 million or more unfairly burdens small
family-owned businesses that provide many jobs to the state’s economy. The bill
setting up the dedicated fund passed the House of Representatives Friday night
with the bare minimum required, a 50-48 vote.
The dedicated
inheritance tax provides $9.6 million to WSU.
WSU Pullman and WSU Spokane will receive a total of 185 undergraduate students
per year funded at $6,303 each. Thirty additional graduate students will be
funded at $15,000 each. The funding levels per student are similar to those
recommended by the House. WSU and UW had been concerned about a much lower
funding level proposed by the Senate of $5,500 per student.
WSU-Vancouver Funded
for Four-Year Programs. In a
historic but not particularly unexpected development, WSU Vancouver received
funding to begin admitting 200 freshman and sophomore students for the first
time since the branch campus was created 17 years ago. The budget explicitly
provides $6,303 per student for each of those 200 lower division students. The
budget also provides $350,000 to start up the new programs for freshmen and
sophomores. Landmark legislation that adds to WSU Vancouver’s mission and allows
freshman and sophomores has now passed the Legislature and Gov. Christine
Gregoire has announced that she will sign the bill (HB 1794) at UW Tacoma. UW
Tacoma also receives the new authority. The bill will be signed May 4, 1 p.m. at
Carwein Auditorium, Gregoire’s staff said the governor had preferred to do the
signing in Vancouver and will be visiting that campus soon. The same bill gives
WSU Tri-Cities authority to begin admitting freshmen and sophomores in
biotechnology with approval from the Higher Education Coordinating Board.
The compromise budget provides 25
lower-division student slots for WSU Tri-Cities. All branch campuses received
some kind of four-year authority in House Bill 1794 but Vancouver was the least
controversial. Community colleges had resisted the effort at some locations but
President Wayne Branch and Clark College were early and strong advocates for a
four-year program at WSU Vancouver. WSU Vancouver’s historic mission of serving
upper-division transfer students from Clark and Lower Columbia Community
Colleges will continue and be enhanced by this budget as well. WSU Vancouver
will receive 125 additional upper-division students at $10,000 per student.
There was relatively
little controversy over the student tuition increase amount, however, as both
the House and Senate recommended 7 percent. There were rumors that the
conference was considering 9 percent increases, however.
A 3.2 percent salary
increase in the budget is provided
for faculty, graduate assistants, non-represented classified employees, and
administrative professional staff at WSU on Sept. 1, 2005, two months later than
either the House or the Senate had recommended. As had been rumored, the
Democratic-controlled Legislature and governor used conference to change the 3.2
percent pay raises for employees represented in bargaining units to begin
earlier … on July 1. There was no differential in the starting dates for all
higher education employees in the previous Senate and House versions of the
budget.
Smaller increases for all
employees are provided next year, some are lump sum payments equal to 2 percent
to 2.9 percent as their contracts provide. Faculty, administrative professionals
and graduate assistants will
receive a 1.6 percent permanent salary increase on Sept. 1, 2006. Many
non-represented classified employees will receive a 1.6 percent salary increase
on Sept. 1, 2006 through the end of the biennium, July 1, 2007. No salary increases were intended to be provided for employees in
WSU bargaining units that have petitioned to decertify. WSU received an
additional $11.2 million to cover changes in health benefit costs to maintain
current benefits.
The conference budget
provides WSU with the last installment in funding to add veterinary medicine
students from Washington State to backfill the withdrawal of students from
Oregon State University. The budget provides $1.5 million of the $2 million that
WSU requested, which was the House funding level.
Little funding for
research. While UW and WSU did
receive some specialize funding for research in the budget, there were no
appropriations for more general research that the universities had recommended.
Senate Ways and Means Vice Chair Doumit did succeed in securing $400,000 for WSU
research to combat “ghost shrimp” in Willapa Bay, a proposal recommended by the
Senate and WSU but not the House. Ghost shrimp are a predator, aggravated by the
presence of dams on the Columbia River, that have undermined oyster farming on
the bay that contributes tens of millions of dollars to the Pacific County
economy. WSU researchers will be looking for alternatives to a pesticide that is
currently used to control the shrimp.
There was also funding for a vehicle licensing
study (House Bill 1241) and a renewable energy expert (Substitute Senate Bill
5101) that had not been requested by the university.
There is language in the
budget urging WSU to reallocate agricultural research dollars to organic farming
and precision agriculture. However, there were no mandates to do specific
allocations such as a $4.6 million unfunded proviso that was offered in House
Appropriations Committee deliberations and opposed by WSU.
Gov. Christine Gregoire’s
proposal for a Life Sciences Discovery Fund (Engrossed Second Substitute Senate
Bill 5581) to benefit research projects at
universities and in the private sector had been held up over discussions
between the Senate and the House on whether to permit cloning or stem cell
research to be funded. It had passed each house in a different form with the
House having no restrictions on the cloning issue. The state Senate narrowly
voted 25-24 to accept the House version. Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Tri-Cities,
crossed party lines to vote with most Democrats to accept the House version and
send the bill on to the governor.
For more information call: Larry Ganders, Assistant to the
President, 360-956-2165
