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Category: OPB News and Announcements

House Republicans Release Budget Proposal

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While we anticipate operating budget proposals from House and Senate Ways & Means Chairs next week, the House Republican caucus released its version of an operating budget today. Note that this proposal is not binding; it is a list of House Republican funding priorities. These priorities focus on funding K12 education, including funding for all-day kindergarten, 180-day school year, levy equalization, and reform measures. Additionally, the House Republican proposal includes increases to public safety funding and does not include a proposed early release program for Washington prisoners.

House Republicans would make a number of changes to higher education institutions that were not included in the Governor’s budget, released in November. The proposal would reduce funding for “administrative costs” by .5 percent at public baccalaureates and remedial education at the community and technical colleges. While no definition of “administrative costs” is provided, budget notes declare that “administrative activities are reduced. Reductions shall be implemented in a manner that minimizes impact on student services.” The UW would need to cut $6.6 million of administrative activities in FY13 if this policy is included in the final budget. Additionally, this proposal temporarily lays off all state employees, including employees at the state’s higher education institutions, for 24 days in FY13. Temporary layoffs would not extend to some critical personnel.

This proposal makes changes to the State Need Grant (SNG) program as well. Students at public baccalaureate institutions would be limited to 12 quarters (or 6 quarters for students at community and technical colleges) of grant funding. Interestingly, this proposal would eliminate SNG funding for students attending private, for profit institutions.

Like the Governor’s budget, the House Republican proposal would fund a $3.8 million Engineering enrollment support initiative at the University of Washington.  All told, the House Republican proposal would reduce administrative expenditures at the UW by $6.6 million and increase funding for the College of Engineering by $3.8 million (for a net reduction of $2.8 million).

Again, initial budgets out of both Senate and House Ways & Means committees will be released next week and we will provide full coverage (including budget briefings) of those proposals at that time.

New OPB Website!

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We’ve been a bit quiet on the blog front lately. Mainly due to our focus on redesigning the OPB website, which has just gone live!

In particular, we have:

  • Created a new office directory that allows the user to search for staff by content area.
  • Created multiple ways to identify or locate the content you are searching for, including OPB department homepages, quicklinks for popular destinations, topical top-bar navigation that seeks to direct users to popular content even if they are not familiar with UW/OPB terminology or departmental divides, and a search button specifically for OPB content.
  • Added a homepage SlideDeck feature that highlights more recent content in a user friendly way.
  • Created an automated blog feed on the homepage!

While the website will be a work in progress, we hope it represents a major step forward in terms of the user experience. Look out in the coming months for a great interactive data portal, as well as new interfaces for the BillTracker and for accessing current and historic tuition and fee rates.

Many thanks are owed to Creative Communications for their amazing work with us throughout this project! Their creativity and professionalism (not to mention patience with those of us who knew far too little about all things technical) has been invaluable. We look forward to continuing to work with them as we continue to build out the site!

Please contact us with any feedback, questions, or problems regarding this new website!

Governor Cuts UW Funding by $37M, Proposes Offsetting Tax Increase

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The Governor’s budget office released the first supplemental budget proposal today, further reducing state expenditures for the 2011-13 biennium by $1.7 billion. All told, higher education institutions would absorb about nine percent of the total cut.

Under the Governor’s proposal, each of the state’s six baccalaureate institutions  would receive 16-17 percent cuts in state funding for Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13), while community and technical colleges would receive a 13 percent cut.

Funding cuts are once again disproportionately concentrated at four-year institutions even though the Governor discussed making equal across-the-board cuts as recently as October, because, as noted by budget staff, four-year institutions have a greater ability to   generate tuition revenue than community colleges.

Note that the Governor’s budget eliminates funding for the state’s Work Study program next academic year but importantly, preserves funding for the State Need Grant program.

For more information about budget increases for the College of Engineering, aerospace innovation funding, and financial aid impacts, please review our Planning & Budgeting brief.

State Revenue Down Again as Governor Prepares Budget

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Released this morning, the November state revenue forecast indicates that the state is short another $122 million below needed revenue for the current biennium. Dr. Arun Raha, Executive Director of the Economic Revenue and Forecast Council, wrote that uncertainty over Southern Europe’s debt crisis and potential political gridlock in Washington, D.C., produced largely expected economic results predicted in September’s dismal forecast. In essence, we still have a $2 billion budget problem and since September, it has grown by $122 million.

The Governor will use this forecast as her benchmark for budget reductions in the 2012 Supplemental budget (first supplemental budget of the 2011-13 biennium). All told, the Governor will need to cut over $2 billion from the current biennial budget in order to produce a balanced budget, which she is required to do before proposing any revenue increases to offset reductions.

This budget will be released this Monday, November 21. We will release a budget brief and blog detailing the impact of the Governor’s budget on the UW as soon as possible. While the Governor’s budget release is a critical first step of the special and regular legislative sessions, we are months away from a final legislative budget.

Governor’s Budget Options Include 20% UW Cut

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The Governor released a preliminary list of potential budget reductions for FY13 today. The list includes a set of severe cuts across state government but demarcates which reductions she would include in her formal November budget. For higher education, the Governor would cut colleges and universities 15 percent in FY13 and suspend the State Work Study program. Last year, UW students received $2.3 million in State Work Study funds.

The Governor also included potential general fund state reductions at 10 and 20 percent (click on the chart below to enlarge it).

More information about these potential reductions are included in a Planning & Budgeting brief. Note that the reductions outlined in the Governor’s letter are preliminary and we are many months away from resolution on a 2012 Supplemental Budget.

New from OPB

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Make sure to check out the following recent additions to the website:

  • Updated printable UW Fact Cards for your wallets and pockets and new UW Fast Facts! Please let us know if you have any questions.
  • Updated brief on Institutional autonomy among UW peer institutions across the US.
  • Final Decision Summary and Overview report on Activity Based Budgeting.

We are working on a website overhaul that we hope to roll out in the coming months, and our main aim is to make OPB information and resources as easy (and pleasant) to find as possible. Stay tuned!

Governor to Call November Special Session

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Governor Gregoire announced that she will call the Legislature back to Olympia for a 30-day special session at the end of November after the next revenue forecast is released. Gregoire will outline her expectations for the special session during a press conference this morning, which will be aired on TVW.

A November 2011 special session is not a complete surprise, as the latest revenue forecast reduced general fund revenue by $1.4 billion for the biennium. Many anticipate that the next revenue forecast will reduce anticipated revenue further. During the special session, the Legislature will likely move to reduce general fund appropriations for both the current fiscal year and FY13.

Please check this blog regularly for information about the upcoming special session, state budget cuts, and impacts on the UW budget.

$1.4b Deficit Opens up for 2011-13 in WA

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On Thursday, September 16, the Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council (ERFC) released its quarterly update of State General Fund Revenues. The forecast reduced expected revenue for the upcoming 2011-13 biennium to $30.3 billion, $1.4 billion less than the previous forecast released in June. A deficit of this magnitude is expected to necessitate another round of budget cuts for state agencies, including the UW, in the upcoming legislative session set to commence in January.

Read the latest OPB Brief for more detail.

UW Remains More Affordable Than Most Peers

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As of July 15, all UW Global Challenge State Peers had approved resident undergraduate tuition increases for the upcoming 2011‐12 academic year. See the latest OPB brief for details.

Despite implementing a 20 percent tuition increase for resident undergraduates, the University of Washington, which has consistently ranked as the least expensive among the GCS peers, will continue to rank in the bottom third of the peer group in 2011‐12.