UW-WSU Budget Request Endorsed by
the Higher Education Coordination Board
Olympia Update No.
2 for the 2005 Legislative Session
October 23, 2004
From: Larry Ganders,
Assistant to the President
925 Plum St. SE - Building 4, P.O. Box 43165, Olympia, WA 98504-3165
For a
comprehensive summary of the WSU budget requests, go to
WSU budget briefing papers.
For a
printer-friendly Microsoft Word version,
click here
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An
unprecedented joint biennial budget request by the University of Washington and
Washington State University was unanimously endorsed and enhanced Thursday by
the state Higher Education Coordinating Board. Chairman Bob
Craves, a founding member of Costco Wholesale Corp., immediately made plans for
board members to meet with Gov. Gary Locke and the next governor on
the proposal. Locke will consider the HEC Board request before submitting his
own budget request in December, one of his last major duties as governor.
Meeting at Seattle Central
Community College, the board Oct. 21 endorsed the joint UW-WSU 2005-2007
operating budget proposal that seeks to reverse the sharp drop in funding that
the state provides for each student attending the public research institutions,
initiate new state-funded research, and increase enrollments. If approved by
the Legislature next spring, the request could improve educational quality at
all WSU and UW campuses, launch new state research for improving both human
health and creating jobs, and increase the number of students that the state
research universities can enroll.
Three new major WSU
construction projects were also supported as part of a $504 million capital
construction request submitted in a single list by all six of the state’s public
four-year institutions: UW, WSU, Central Washington University, Eastern
Washington University, Western Washington University, and The Evergreen State
College. Included in the recommended list are the $57.1 million Biotechnology
Life Sciences Building for WSU Pullman, the Battelle-WSU Proposal for a
BioProducts Building at WSU Tri-Cities, and a new $31.6 million WSU nursing
building at Spokane’s Riverpoint campus.
In the resolution approving
the budget requests, the HEC Board noted that they were in line with the two
goals of the state higher education master plan: (1) “increasing opportunities
for students to earn degrees” and (2) “responding to the state’s economic
needs.”
The HEC Board-Endorsed Operating
Budget
The board supported $848
million in additional state investments for all of the state’s four-year
universities including WSU and UW.
Board Backs Core Funding:
Real state funding per student at WSU has dropped 20 percent since 1993 while
tuition has spiked. Adjusted for inflation, state appropriations per student
were $11,412 at WSU in 1993 and are $9,067 for 2004. The result is that students
are paying more for less education. The joint budget request endorsed by the HEC
Board would result in the investment of $50.96 million at WSU alone to improve
quality in educational offerings at all campuses and distance education, reduce
class sizes, and retain world class faculty. The core funding request includes
more than $1 million per year to expand enrollments in veterinary medicine for
students who are Washington residents.
HEC Board Increases
Research Request A $20 million joint UW-WSU request for Research and
Technology Transfer request was endorsed by the board, which sought an
additional $80 million for research funding for the state’s six four-year higher
education institutions. The board, which for years did not even have research on
its legislative agenda, clearly joined the cause this year. The board
passed a resolution Thursday calling for a total of $100 million in university
research. WSU and UW would be expected to get a large share of the $80 million
in additional funds. About $7.1 million of the original $20 million UW-WSU request was earmarked for WSU.
More than 500 new WSU
students would be added to WSU each year as part of the HEC-Board endorsed
enrollment request. Half of the students would be added to the Pullman campus. There would be 100 more for Spokane, 45 more for Tri-Cities, and 20 more
for Spokane each year. An additional 100 students are requested by WSU for
high-demand areas like nursing and special education.
The HEC Board-Endorsed Capital
Construction Budget
The board noted that much of
the funding for capital construction requests could come from $750 million in
general obligations bonds authorized by the Legislature last year, known as the
“Evans-Gardner” proposal. The board requested $1.04 billion in capital funding
for the four-year universities and community colleges. The four-year university
share is $504 million.
Biotechnology Life Sciences
Topping the list of WSU construction-phase projects endorsed by the HEC Board is a $57.1 million
Biotechnology Life Sciences Building, a facilility that will house bio-medical
research at WSU, providing programs in basic and applied molecular/cellular
biological research in bioinformatics, genomics, proteomics, bioengineering and
cellular and molecular processes.
Battelle-WSU Bioproducts
Building. The HEC Board endorsed $13.1 million state funds to be
matched with private funding to complete a $26.4 million, 57,000-square foot building for
byproducts laboratory and instruction at WSU Tri-Cities. The facility will
provide critical space to develop and demonstrate the conversion of agricultural
products and byproducts into value-added consumer products.
WSU-Spokane Riverpoint
Nursing Center. The $31.6 million construction project would upgrade, relocate
and expand the main building for WSU’s Intercollegiate College of Nursing in
Spokane, the largest nursing college in the Northwest. The project is timed to
tackle the nursing shortage crisis through the state and region, create capacity
to educate more university and community college nursing faculty, consolidate
university health science programs at one Spokane campus, and improve health
care for all Washingtonians.
A $12.7 million Wastewater
Reclamation Project. The project will reclaim over 1 million gallons of
wastewater per day and use it for irrigation on campus. That will reduce the
pressure that university water consumption is putting on the “Grand Ronde
Aquifer” which serves the Pullman-Moscow area.
$6 million in major utility
upgrades. This would fund upgrades to the North Campus Electrical Substation
and the East Campus Chiller that are necessary to accommodate construction on
the northeast section of the Pullman campus.
$7.4 million for design of a
Biomedical Sciences Building in Pullman. The building would be scheduled for
construction in 2007-2009. It will replace crowded, outdated spaces with a
modern facility for targeted programs like neuroscience, pharmacology, cancer
research and toxicology.
For more information,
contact WSU.
