Popular
construction projects for a Pullman biotechnology building, a Tri-Cities
Bioproducts building, and a Spokane nursing center are consumed in a political
storm swirling over university funding in the capital construction budget
now being negotiated in the legislative session this week.
Stress
on the biennial construction budget
has reached the level that House Capital Budget Committee Chairman Hans
Dunshee, D-Snohomish, has accused WSU of “gaming” the system. In other
words, WSU is accused of placing its most critical projects at the bottom
of its list allegedly knowing that powerful legislators would get them
funded. WSU put its list together well before the outcome of the November
election was known, making such “gaming” impossible. WSU stands by its
practice of ranking the buildings on their academic merits in this order:
Pullman Biotechnology, Tri-Cities Bioproducts, and Spokane Nursing. The
university recognizes, however, that all of these projects must be built.
The
real problem for accomplishing that in this biennial capital budget is
not any gaming by any entity … but inadequate capital construction dollars
being discussed in Olympia for four-year colleges and universities. Those assumptions make funding of all three projects
much less likely.
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 Gardner-Evans funds the percentage
increases to just 24.5%.
All
three projects have influential constituencies and communities that the
Legislature doesn’t want to disappoint.
The Washington Biotechnology Association and the Washington Association
of Wheat Growers have recently weighed in for the Pullman building. Battelle’s
Pacific Northwest National Laboratories will be a partner in the Tri-Cities
building and has helped secure more than $10 million in additional funds
for the building. The Spokane Chamber of Commerce has been a major advocate
for the nursing building and federal operating funds may be available
for that building as well.
A
legislative-mandated priority list negotiated by all of the state’s institutions
put all three WSU buildings within the $504 million essential recommendation
level requested by the Council of Presidents and supported by the state
Higher Education Coordinating Board. But recommendations for the universities by former
Gov. Gary Locke came up with just $329 million of the $504 million. The
universities’ recommendation is based on the historic funding patterns
for four-year universities and new bonding capacity that was supposed
to be made possible by bills pushed through the Legislature by former
Governors Dan Evans and Booth Gardner. Instead, Locke provided only enough
money to do $45 million of the $57 million Biotechnology Building in Pullman.
There was no money for the Tri-Cites or Spokane buildings.
The
state Senate and Gov. Chris Gregoire may still find ways to fund the WSU
projects. Those budgets may be publicized in the next week or two. But
in the House, there is pressure from some Seattle legislators to put even
less money into WSU projects, deducting for a supplemental budget appropriation
last year for a Spokane Academic Center building under construction at
Riverpoint.
Against
this backdrop have come suggestions that WSU has buried the Spokane Nursing
Building and branch campus projects on its list. This is despite the fact
that the Spokane Nursing building, originally scheduled to be built in
2009, was accelerated by WSU for construction in 2007.
WSU’s decision led to the Legislature combining design stages and accelerating
the project to 2005, making it the third building for consideration in
this Legislative session.
Some
argue that the Spokane building should be first on the WSU list because
of the needs in nursing education. WSU’s nursing college is the largest
in the Pacific Northwest and its Spokane center, miles away from Riverpoint,
is at capacity and hamstrung to deal with increasing demand for nurses.
Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, and House Capital Vice Chair
Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, are among major advocates for the nursing building.
That
legitimate recognition of the needs in nursing, however, does not explain
why there should be any delay in constructing the $57 million Biotechnology/Life
Sciences building, according to Rep. Fred Jarrett, R-Renton, the ranking
Republican on the House Capital Budget Committee.
The Biotechnology/Life
Science Building houses 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.
Collaborating with other faculty in Pullman, Spokane
and elsewhere in the system, these faculty enable more than $20 million per year in federally-sponsored
research that will serve as the backbone for developing both the Riverpoint
Health Sciences campus at WSU Spokane and the WSU Bioproducts building
in Tri-Cities.
The
Bio-products facility will provide the critical research space to
develop and demonstrate the conversion of low-value agricultural
products and byproducts into value-added products. Processes will be
developed and demonstrated to take residues like culls, straw, and
manure and covert them into products like plastics, solvents, and
pharmaceuticals.
The four-story $57.1 million 117,210-square-foot Pullman Biotechnology/Life
Sciences building allows biological science programs across academic disciplines
to be brought together in innovative laboratory settings. The building plan to meld programs
under one roof near Johnson Hall is designed to create a synergy that
fires up state economic development and produces students that will pursue
hot, new careers on the cutting edge of science in everything from agriculture,
to cancer, to birth defects research. The new facility will feature open
laboratories similar to Stanford’s Center for Clinical Sciences Research
The building will immediately bring 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. Many of these over-utilized laboratories
are antiquated. It will move laboratories out of science buildings like
Heald Hall that have been inadequate for many years because of light laboratory
floor load capacities and poor mechanical and electrical systems. They
will be involved in new laboratory settings where 25 faculty scientists
from different colleges and departments will be assembled to work in teams
conducting tens of millions of dollars in research in a new multi-disciplinary
facility.
