January 17, 2008
‘Extremely lean’ budget expected this year
Since 2008 is an election year in Washington and there are no major crises on the horizon, State Relations Director Randy Hodgins is anticipating a 60-day legislative session in Olympia that will end on time and will adhere in large measure to the “extremely lean” supplemental budget proposed by the governor.
“Her budget allowed for a little spending in health, human services and natural resources,” Hodgins says. “It also made targeted, one-time expenditures. For higher education, this came in the area of campus safety. But many in the education community, and some legislators, feel there could have been greater investments in education, so we may see the legislature make some small increases.”
In addition to the campus safety expenditures, the governor’s budget proposed spending $2 million in land acquisition and soils remediation for UW Tacoma (this was out of a $7.4 million request) and $1.1 million for starting classes at a Snohomish County branch campus.
The Snohomish County branch is likely to be the subject of controversy. Pacific Station in downtown Everett was named the preferred site by the consultant who worked with the state’s Office of Financial Management, with the Smokey Point location in Marysville the second choice. Advocates for these two sites are expected to jockey for approval, with the legislative community currently split. The academic plan created by the UW has thus far received little legislative attention, with issues of siting being the focus.
A major concern of the UW and the rest of higher education is increasingly tight capital budgets. The state has allocated all the funds that were made available under the “Gardner-Evans” bill, passed in 2003, which provided dedicated bonding authority for higher education’s capital needs. A proposal to renew this authority, providing about $1 billion over three biennia, has been endorsed by three former governors — Gardner, Evans and Locke — but it was not included in the governor’s supplemental budget. “We’re seeing increased demands on the capital budget from community projects, K-12 and low income housing,” Hodgins says, “and the state is approaching its constitutional debt limit. We are concerned not just with the lack of a proposal this year, but that capital funds will not be available in the coming years, either.”
Although only a portion of the UW’s campus safety operating request was included in the governor’s budget, Hodgins will be discussing the requests with legislators to see if they are interested in adding them in to the mix.
Among the operating requests are:
- $567,000 for operating expenses of the Safe Campus Initiative;
- $1.9 million to restore non-resident graduate tuition subsidies;
- $2.1 million to build a research capacity to study sustainable ports, the environment and e-science at UW Tacoma;
- $2 million for an e-science institute, which would support the management of massive data sets;
- $1.9 million for the Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation;
- $250,000 to expand access to child care, serving 150 more children of UW faculty, staff and students;
- $11.1 million for recruitment and retention of faculty, professional staff and librarians;
- $883,000 to increase the number of nurse educators on the faculty.
The UW also has submitted capital requests, including $4.5 million for improved animal research facilities — roughly one-third of the UW’s $1 billion in research grants rely on animal research — and $1.5 million for the House of Knowledge Longhouse, which would provide a culturally responsive learning environment for students, faculty and staff.
Up-to-date information on the session will be available at Hodgins’ blog, http://depts.washington.edu/staterel/wordpress/.
