Earlier this week, leadership in the House and Senate released their 2020 supplemental state budget proposals, which include technical corrections and other changes to the enacted 2019-21 biennial budgets.
An OPB brief outlining these proposals is available on the OPB Briefs page. We will update the brief in the event that proposals are amended, and will release another brief when legislative compromise budgets are released in the coming days. The legislative session is slated to end March 12.
On Wednesday, Governor Jay Inslee released his proposed 2019- 21 supplemental operating and capital budgets. The budgets include corrections and technical changes to the 2019-21 biennial budgets passed in April 2019. For a detailed analysis and summary of the Governor’s proposals, or to look back at OPB’s brief on the biennial budgets, please see OPB’s briefs on this page.
Overall, the Governor’s operating budget does not make significant changes to the enacted biennial budget. The largest change in the higher education sector was a transfer of nearly $28 million to the Workforce Education Investment Account (WEIA) to ensure that the fund would not go into deficit in the 2019-21 biennium, given the forecasted caseload for the Washington College Grant. The most significant adjustments for the UW are:
As for the capital budget, the University received $1 million for its request for predesign to study a multi-phased approach to renovate or replace portions of the Magnuson Health Sciences Center. New space will accommodate the growing demands of education space for the health sciences schools, including space for interdisciplinary innovation and collaboration.
The release of the Governor’s budget proposals represents the first step in the supplemental budget process. Lawmakers in the Senate and the House will release their own proposals throughout the upcoming 2020 legislative session, beginning on January 13.
For more information regarding the UW’s current requests for state funding, please see OPB’s 2020 operating and capital request submissions on the State Budget Information page.
Stay tuned to the OPBlog for updates during the 2020 legislative session!
A proposed state capital budget, SB 6090, passed out of the Senate Committee on Ways & Means with substitutes and may be voted on soon. Last session, lawmakers came to a compromise on a proposed capital budget, but it was ultimately not passed due to a disagreement over a rural water rights issue. This proposal is the same as that proposed compromise, except it includes language proposed by the Governor before this session that would allow the UW and other agencies to be reimbursed for capital expenditures that occurred on or after July 1, 2017 in the absence of an approved capital budget last year. A similar process is occurring in the House with HB 1075. OPB will monitor any changes that occur on the House or Senate floor on passage of the budget(s).
Stay tuned to the OPBlog for updates on the legislative session, including the capital budget.
Leadership in the House and Senate released a 2017-19 compromise state operating budget on June 30, 2017 in the form of Substitute Senate Bill 5883. The Governor signed the budget less than an hour before midnight, narrowly avoiding a partial state government shutdown. Lawmakers also passed a partial capital budget that reappropriates unspent capital funding from the 2015-17 biennium, which allows previously authorized projects to continue into the new biennium, but does not make new appropriations for 2017-19.
A brief from the Office of Planning & Budgeting provides a detailed overview of the final compromise operating budget and partial capital budget. We expect that a compromise 2017-19 capital budget will be released within a couple weeks, and will update the brief at that time.
The final compromise operating budget represents a middle ground between budget proposals released by the Governor, House and Senate earlier this session. The budget maintains current tuition policy, allowing for a 2.2 percent resident undergraduate tuition increase in FY18. Lawmakers made significant investments to maintain and expand state programs, especially in K-12 education. As a reminder, this budget cycle largely focused on meeting the state’s K-12 funding obligations, due to the state Supreme Court’s ruling in McCleary v. State of Washington.
Investments directed at the UW include funding for employee compensation, medical education, STEM enrollments, and several research initiatives across academic disciplines. However, lawmakers also reduced the UW’s state funding and assumed an offsetting reduction in tuition waived for graduate students. They also instituted a new charge to state agencies for services provided by the Governor’s Office of Financial Management (OFM), which will result in the UW having to use $3 million in student tuition revenue over the biennium to support OFM instead of the University’s academic mission.
Please contact Jed Bradley if you have any questions.
On Monday, leadership in the House Appropriations Committee released their initial operating budget proposal. This proposal follows last week’s release of the Senate operating proposal and December’s release of the Governor’s operating and capital proposals.
See the new OPB brief here for information regarding the House proposal, as well as a full comparison between current budget proposals.
Some noteworthy items in the House Appropriations operating budget proposal include:
In addition, the Senate Ways & Means committee released its proposed capital budget on Tuesday, and the OPB brief on the Senate’s proposals has been updated. Some highlights include:
The House has not released a capital budget as of the time of this posting, but that brief will be updated once that information is available.
Stay tuned to the OPBlog for updates on proposed budgets.
This week, leadership in the House and Senate released their respective supplemental operating and capital budget proposals for the current biennium (FY16 & FY17), which follow the December release of Governor Jay Inslee’s proposals. As a reminder, the House and Senate proposals will be amended before they pass their respective chambers.
Please see the OPB brief for a detailed comparison of the House, Senate and Governor’s supplemental operating and capital budget proposals.
Some highlights:
Legislators will have until March 10, the last day of session, to complete and pass a compromise budget.
Governor Jay Inslee released his supplemental operating and capital budget proposals on Thursday, both of which include technical corrections and minor appropriation changes to the current 2015-17 biennial budgets (fiscal years 2016 and 2017). This budget release marks the first step of the 2016 legislative session – set to begin on Monday, January 11, 2016. As a reminder, the House and the Senate will propose their own supplemental budgets throughout this short 60-day session as they work toward a compromise budget.
As predicted, Governor Inslee’s proposal offers very few changes to ongoing appropriations. In response to the UW’s request, the proposal provides increased expenditure authority for ongoing shellfish biotoxin monitoring work by the UW’s Olympia Regional Harmful Algal Bloom Program, beginning in FY17. If this budget prevailed, the University would also receive $250,000 in additional ongoing funding for the Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement program beginning in FY17. The proposal does not make changes to the compensation and benefits assumptions of the 2015-17 operating budget.
For more information, please see our brief on Governor Inslee’s 2016 Supplemental Operating and Capital Budgets.
The Governor released operating and capital budgets yesterday morning. Though the UW fared well in the capital budget, we believe the operating budget, as currently proposed, presents challenges. Please note that the Governor’s budgets will be taken up by the Legislature in January; we are many months away from a final legislative compromise. As usual, we will be sending out budget briefing documents throughout legislative session to keep you updated.
For an analysis and summary of the operating and capital budgets, please review the OPB brief.
We have updated the OPB brief we posted on February 27th, to reflect additional information regarding the employee health insurance related agency reductions. Both the House and Senate budget would decrease agency contributions for employee health benefits. The House budget cuts state funding by $7.6 million and the Senate budget cuts state funding by $4.4 million. However, both of these reductions are offset by lower per employee spending “limits” on benefits. The House budget would reduce monthly employer funding to $658 per eligible employee. The Senate budget would reduce monthly employer funding to $703 per eligible employee.
Leadership in both the House and Senate fiscal committees released supplemental operating and capital budgets this week, proposing technical corrections and appropriation changes to the current 2013-15 biennial budgets (primarily applicable to FY15). Please see the full OPB brief for information on each proposal.
As a reminder, both budgets will be amended in respective committees, and possibly on each chamber floor, before negotiations begin towards a compromise budget.