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Olympia Update No 9• April 22, 2005
From: Larry Ganders,
Assistant to the President
925 Plum St. SE - Building 4, P.O. Box 43165, Olympia, WA 98504-3165
For a
comparison of the Conference Budget to Other Budgets,
click Here
For a printer-friendly Microsoft Word version,
click
here
Final 2005-2007
capital budget:
Late surge for
Biotech Life Sciences Building fails;
WSU awarded
Riverpoint nursing facility
Tri-Cities,
Vancouver projects approved
A late-session lobbying
effort to secure funding for a $57.1 million Biotechnology/Life Sciences
Building in Pullman has failed in
the state Legislature with the announcement last night of the final version
of Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6094, the House-Senate compromise of the
capital construction budget. Capital budget negotiators have signed the
conference committee report and final passage by both the House and Senate by
this weekend is considered likely.
The development leaves WSU
without its top new construction priority as the 2005 legislative session draws
to a close. But the university ends the session with many more supporters for
the building than when it began and with a $114 million budget with important
new projects approved for construction in Spokane, Tri-Cities, Vancouver and
Prosser. Most notably, the final budget settles ownership of the new $31.6
million Riverpoint Nursing Building, a Spokane project requested by WSU. Eastern
Washington University was designated the owner by
the state House of Representatives. The final
budget gives ownership of the Spokane building to WSU as the state Senate had
proposed. Construction will now be underway next year.
The Washington Biotechnical
and Biomedical Association, the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, the
Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce, Avista Corporation, and the City of
Spokane were among key interest groups that continued lobbying for the Pullman
building even though it did not show up in House and Senate versions of the
capital construction budget.
House Republicans virtually
made the building a crusade late in the session as Rep. Fred Jarrett, R-Federal
Way, made strong challenges on the House floor to try to add the project. Late
in the session, an alternative funding proposal appeared to have the support of
Senate leaders including Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, and Sen.
Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, who leads capital budget discussions for Senate
Republicans. The proposal was also worked by Gov. Christine Gregoire’s
negotiating team. House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, told WSU that he too was
supportive of the concept, after discussing it with House Caucus Chairman Bill
Grant, D-Walla Walla. However, the proposal never was accepted by House Capital
Budget Chair Hans Dunshee, D-Seattle, who had complained earlier in the session
that the building was ranked too high on WSU’s priority list and that Southeast
Washington had a disproportionate share of capital construction projects with
the presence of EWU, Medical Lake, and other government facilities. However,
even Dunshee said this week that the WSU Biotechnology project was not “dead”
and that he expected WSU would resubmit it in a future legislative session.
The failure of the WSU
Biotechnology Life/Sciences Building and the inability of the University of
Washington to secure funding for biomedical facilities at South Lake Union in
Seattle are major setbacks for observers who felt that it might be a big year
for biotechnology and research in the Legislature. The governor’s proposal for a
Life Sciences Discovery Fund, which is still expected to pass, has nevertheless
hit a snag in the final days of the legislative session as well, stuck in a
House-Senate tug-of-war over whether there should be a ban on human cloning
research in the bill.
But there was very good
news in the final capital construction budget for the largest nursing program in
the Northwest, the WSU College of Nursing.
The budget provides $31.6 million to Washington State University for a new
Riverpoint home for the college as Senate negotiators had advocated. The House
had funded the building but suggested that it should be owned by EWU, which has
many students that take classes from WSU
faculty members as part of an intercollegiate program.
The WSU nursing budget also
provides some good news for Spokane Falls Community College, as the budget
provides that the community college system will secure control of the old
Magnuson building, where WSU nursing program is currently housed, “upon
completion of the Riverpoint campus in Spokane.”
To nobody’s surprise,
WSU’s second priority construction project, the Tri-Cities Bioproducts Building,
received $13.1 million in the final conference committee budget and construction
can begin this fall. The building, a
joint project with Battelle’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland,
has consistently been endorsed through every step of the capital construction
process and is now ready for construction at WSU Tri-Cities. The building was
fully funded in recommendations from the Higher Education Coordinating Board,
Gov. Christine Gregoire, the initial Senate proposal, and the initial House
proposal. Despite being sited in the Republican-represented 8th
legislative district, House Democratic leaders including Dunshee and Chopp made
an unusual mid-session visit to Tri-Cities to tour the site with Rep. Shirley
Hankins, R-Richland. The state funding for the building is expected to leverage
federal dollars. The anticipated federal funding will allow an additional bond
issue of up to $11.6 million, leading to construction of a $24 million building
at WSU Tri-Cities.
$30.5 million for
Preservation Projects No legislative
budgets provided funding for the Pullman wastewater facility or any other major
construction projects for Pullman. However, significant funding was provided for
so-called “minor works” projects that will largely be spent on the Pullman
campus and address issues like, health safety, preservation, equipment and
infrastructure. The final conference budget provided $6 million for minor
capital improvements where the House budget has recommended $8 million. The
conference report reflected other funding levels that the House and Senate had
agreed on including $30.5 million for preservation projects, and $2 million for
health and safety. The final budget provided $7 million for equipment as the
House recommended. The Senate had recommended $8.5 million.
Student Services
Building Ready for Construction this fall in Vancouver
The compromise budget approved $10.6 million for
the next major building at WSU Vancouver, the student services center. That
building, which had not been recommended by the governor, was in both House and
Senate budgets. The conference budget also approved pre-design and design
projects for Vancouver which were not recommended by the House but were
supported by the Senate. The design funding means that WSU Vancouver will have
projects on the capital construction list for at least the next six years.
Construction will start soon on the student services center.
The compromise budget provides design funds for an
undergraduate classroom building that could be ready for construction in
2007-2009.The budget provides pre-design funding for an Applied Technology and Classroom building that could be
constructed in 2009-2011.
Capital Funding Provided
for WSU Prosser. Once again, the WSU
Prosser experiment station received a small amount of funding in the capital
budget for Phase II of its new building. The final budget adopted the House
position of provided $2.8 million that will allow the Center for Precision
Agriculture to have new facilities at WSU Prosser.
For more information call: Larry Ganders, Assistant to the
President, 360-956-2165
