Draft Olympia Update No 1 • Dece
Olympia
Update No 1 for the 2006 Session • December 11, 2005
From: Larry Ganders, Assistant to the President
Preparing for
the 2006 Session:
WSU proposes
alternative funding for Life Sciences
A revised funding
mechanism to get construction of the $63 million WSU Biotechnology/Life Sciences
Building underway by next summer has been proposed by the university and is
under consideration by Gov. Christine Gregoire and legislators preparing for the
Jan. 9 legislative session.
At issue, is construction
of a 117,000-square-foot-building that will house some of WSU’s most productive
researchers and graduate students, when measured by their ability to attract federal grants and contracts.
This is work that fuels state economic development. Their laboratories, spread across the
Pullman campus, are in antiquated buildings like Heald and Johnson halls. Most of
these researchers operate on grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH.)
These are the researchers that have worked on projects such as involving the
anti-cancer drug, taxol, treatments for infertility, impacts from environmental
chemical exposure that can be inherited, breast cancer treatments, and
artificial bones. Many have close relationships with researchers and instructors
at other WSU campuses, especially WSU Spokane, where many clinical
trials for the university are performed.
The new building will bring long-sought
relief to a Pullman research university campus that has less than half of the
teaching laboratories required for hands-on learning by undergraduate and
graduate students.
WSU is not asking for any
state construction funds for the building, just
authorization language in the 2006 supplemental budget for the state to sell the
necessary revenue bonds to build it with what the state calls “Certificates of
Participation.” The governor is expected to make her recommendation on the
proposal when she announces her proposed budget in the next two weeks. WSU has
also began discussions on the option with many legislators. Sen. Karen Fraser,
D-Olympia, recently met with WSU administrators and researchers on the issue in
Pullman. A white paper on the issue has been prepared for House Capital Budget
Chair Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish.
Legislators this year
could not come up with the state capital construction budget funds to construct
the building, the top priority of Washington State University
and high on the list recommended by all of the state’s public 4-year
universities and college. However, the Legislature did fund other important
projects this year such as the Spokane Nursing Building, the Tri-Cities
Bioproducts Building, and the Vancouver Student Services Building.
Now WSU is suggesting a
funding mechanism that uses revenue bonds paid by interest earned on a fund that
holds money received from university trust land timber sales.
That takes the critical Life Sciences building
out of competition with instructional buildings. It is not a new funding scheme,
yet not one of those funding options was deliberated during the 2005 session. It is
the same method of financing used for WSU’s Fulmer Hall Renewal and the Todd
Hall Addition years ago. Indeed, WSU trust lands revenues have nearly retired
bonds on those buildings and are now becoming freed up to cover the costs of the
Life Sciences Building.
WSU sees these advantages
to this funding scheme:
- WSU could be ready to
begin construction next spring.
- Beginning
construction sends a strong signal to Congress that Washington is improving
biotechnology buildings and is well-positioned to receive federal grants in
the health fields. It reinforces the need for a proposed agricultural
biotechnology building, which has already been partially funded by Congress
in three separate annual appropriations.
- The building would be
available for the first years of the state’s Life Sciences Discovery Fund
process, a state effort to fund research university and private sector
partnerships with tobacco settlement dollars.
- No new state funding
precedent would be set. This is a method used to build part of the buildings
at WSU for decades and does not impact other higher education institutions.
- Since typical capital
construction funds are not sought, approval of the building would not impact
the state’s debt limit.
- WSU’s “permanent
fund” would be maintained without diminishing existing principle. About $325
million has been collected over the years from sales of timber and other
revenues derived from about 152,000 acres of WSU’s trust lands. Because this
proposal uses interest revenue, the approximately $325 million in principle
is unaffected. The Legislature considered a late-session proposal this year
to use some of the $325 million principle on the building.
- The building will
allow federal research to increase. For instance,the WSU School of Molecular
Biosciences, which concentrates on
chromosome research and function, is expected to increase its research more
than 120 percent to about $8 million per year..
For
more information call: Larry Ganders, Assistant to the President,
360-956-2165 From
WSU campuses, dial 8-2165.
