Skip to content
Blog

Tag: budget

WA Senate Budget: Deeper Cuts, Higher Tuition, Compensation Reductions

Posted on

Senate Ways & Means leadership released their bipartisan budget last night after a 7PM press conference. Budget reductions total $4.8 billion and the largest cuts are targeted to K12 education, higher education,  employee compensation across all sectors of state governemnt, and basic health.

The UW’s general fund appropriation is cut more in the Senate budget ($217 million) than the House engrossed budget, but the Board of Regents would be authorized to increase resident undergraduate tuition higher (16% per year). BEFORE tuition increases, the Senate budget cut would be a 34.2% reduction from our maintenance level.

The Senate budget contains two compensation related cuts, which are limited to employees paid from state general fund (GOF), the medical account, and the accident account (the latter two provide critical funds for Public Health).

  1. Like the House engrossed budget, the Senate budget includes 3% “compensation savings” reducing our appropriation by $24 million over the biennium. Individual salaries will not be affected but our general fund, medical aid, and accident approprations would be reduced.
  2. The Senate budget would require stepped furloughs for “highly paid” employees, excluding faculty and Harborview personnel. The budget bill does not contain language to this effect but rather, the budget overview indicates that the policy will be included, perhaps in SB 5860. The general fund cut for furloughs would be $10.2 million over two years.

A full OPB brief is available for review.

State House of Reps Passes Operating Budget Saturday

Posted on

After considering numerous floor amendments last Friday evening, the House passed their operating budget on Saturday afternoon. The House budget appropriates $32.2 billion in general fund state operating funds and makes significant cuts to health and human services, K-12 education, and higher education.

Like the House Ways & Means chair budget, the engrossed budget cuts $204 million from the UW’s state general fund appropriation over two fiscal years. However, that reduction is somewhat mitigated by the fact that all UW units took part of these cuts in November 2010 permanently. As a result, our brief outlined the approximate cut (before tuition revenue) that would be implemented in Seattle should the House budget ultimately pass after negotiations between the chambers.

The engrossed budget contained an extremely important amendment which exempts university and college employees from individual salary reductions of 3%. However, institutions will still need to come up with requisite “savings” (read: cuts) of 3% from all appropriated funds, which for the UW, are general fund state and the medical aid and accident accounts.

The Senate is expected to release operating and capital budgets this evening. After the Senate passes its budget, leadership in each chamber will begin negotiations toward a conference budget.

Tuition-Setting Authority Coupled with Accountability: Two Bills Propose Reforms

Posted on

Preserving the access to and quality of higher education is paramount in the face of massive budget cuts. Two bills, HB 1795 (Enacting the higher education opportunity act) and SB 5915 (Regarding higher education funding and performance), seek to achieve this goal by:

1.       Giving tuition-setting authority to universities

2.       Reforming Financial Aid

3.       Strengthening accountability

Legislators hope this will preserve the quality of higher education while protecting affordability for students and their families. The House Higher Education committee passed a substitute version of HB 1795 in February, while SB 5915 just had its first hearing in the Senate Ways & Means committee on April 6th. While HB 1795 has not been altered since its hearing more than a month ago, the issues that it seeks to address are still relevant, and we anticipate both bills to remain in play. Please click on the table below to see a summary of the similarities and differences between the two bills.

Finally, House Operating and Capital Budget Details

Posted on

The House released operating and capital budgets yesterday for the upcoming biennium (FY12 & FY13). This budget is an important next step in the budget development process in Olympia but we are far from having a final compromise budget.

The House operating budget proposal:

  • Cuts state funding for the UW by $204 million over two years (32% reduction)
  • Authorizes resident undergraduate tuition rate increases of 13% for both years
  • Eliminates the State Work Study Program
  • Increases the State Need Grant to adjust for increased tuition rates
  • Mandates reductions equivalent to a 3% salary reduction

The House capital budget:

  • Authorizes state funds for the Odegaard Undergraduate Learning Center renovation
  • Provides some state funds for some minor capital repairs, the House of Knowledge, UW Seattle’s High Voltage Infrastructure Improvement project, and design-phase funding for Anderson Hall

Please read our comprehensive brief about the budgets and please post any questions or comments to the blog.

Wherefore art thou, House Operating Budget?

Posted on

When the revenue forecast was released on March 17, House fiscal leadership indicated that their operating budget would be delayed. We hoped to see a budget on March 21st and then on March 29th. Tomorrow is April 1 and your analysts at OPBlog anticipate having neither budget drafts to write about nor fantastic prank ideas to implement.

Some news outlets indicate that we may see the House Ways and Means Operating Budget next week. Meanwhile, Senate Ways and Means chair Ed Murray, D-Seattle, is on record saying that the Senate will not release its budget until the House releases theirs.

We’ll offer full analysis of the budgets as they are released. Stay tuned!

Report Confirms Deep Cuts to Higher Ed Across US

Posted on

The SHEEO State Higher Education Finance report for FY 2010 was released last week. Unsurprisingly, it confirms that the same general pattern in Washington of deep state cuts to higher education funding coupled with steep tuition increases is being replicated in states across the US.

Report Highlights: National Trends

Nationally, on average, state support for public high education per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student declined by about 7 percent between 2009 and 2010, and, at $6,454 per student, is at its lowest level in 25 years. The reports notes that average increases in net tuition revenue of 3.4 percent per student partially offset these budget cuts.

These cuts comes at a time when enrollment continues to grow partly due to more citizens seeking out higher education during the economic crisis. Nationally, enrollment grew by 15 percent between 2005 and 2010. Even when state and federal and increased tuition support manage to stay whole or increase, the report notes that increasing enrollments continue to erode per student funding levels over time.

The report highlights the importance that state support continues to play in education related spending by public institutions even as tuition revenue rises. They acknowledge that this importance is sometimes obscured by the complex finances of large institutions that have many other (non-fungible) funding sources.

Ultimately, SHEEO purports that public and policymaker values are consistent with continued public support for higher education, and they are hopeful that investment will rise again once state budgets stabilize and improve.

Report Highlights: Washington State

SHEEO presents the following averages for Washington State higher education for the 2005-2010 period:

  • 12th in increased enrollment in public higher education (19.2%).
  • 30th in appropriations per FTE.
  • 40th in percent of net tuition revenue as percent of total education revenue.
  • 40th in total educational revenue per FTE.

These numbers are a testament to the comparatively low tuition rates enjoyed by WA residents combined with lower than average state appropriations.

Read the full report for more data, analysis, and methodological details.

New UW Website Centralizes Budget Information

Posted on

You might notice links for a new website, UW Budget Watch, popping up on UW homepages (including OPB and right here on the blog).

OPB worked with Web Communications staff to develop one website that would consolidate many sources of information relating to the state budget and how it has and is expected to continue affecting the University. You will find links to blogs (the absolute best way to get the most up to the date and timely notices) and other UW and non-UW websites, as well as many educational documents, messages about the budget from UW leadership, videos about the current funding situation, and information about related UW initiatives.

We have found sites such as this very helpful in keeping up to date with our peer institutions, and we hope that our page will be as useful for anyone interested in keeping up on the latest developments.

So, visit the page often and we will work hard to keep it updated!

March Revenue Forecast Reduces WA General Fund Budget by $698 million

Posted on

State Economic Forecast Council Director Dr. Arun Raha released the March revenue forecast today. This forecast serves as the revenue basis for the Legislature’s general fund budget in the 2011-13 biennium (FY12 and FY13).

2009-11 Biennium (FY10 & FY11)

While many economic indicators used in his analysis show tentative growth in 2011, revenue collections through March 10, 2011 were $85 million below expectations and growth through the next quarter will continue to lag expectations, contributing to an additional $80 million deficit in the 2009-11 biennium. Legislative leadership confirmed that an additional (fourth) supplemental budget will be needed to reconcile the new FY11 shortfall. The timing of that budget is unknown.

2011-13 (FY12 & FY13)

Weaker growth in several key sectors over the last three months prompted Dr. Raha to increase the projected deficit for the 2011-13 biennium by $698 million.  The Legislature will use a $31.9 billion revenue base for the General Fund State. For comparison, the Governor’s December budget was based on a $32.1 billion general fund state budget.  

While we anticipate the House will release their operating budget proposal next week, House leadership did not commit to a date.

The March forecast includes new data about the downside risks to our economy including the earthquake, tsunami, and risk of nuclear meltdown in Japan. Further, Dr. Raha states that the most significant threat to economic growth is the energy market.  He fears escalating gas prices will continue to erode consumer confidence, regardless of job growth. These downside risk factors overwhelm any upside risks (employment growth, consumer confidence, and commodity prices) by 10 percent.

Please check this blog regularly for state budget updates as they become available.

UW Asked to Model Steep Budget Cuts for 2011-13

Posted on

Last week, Senate and House Fiscal and Higher Education Committee leadership asked all public baccalaureate institutions and the community and technical colleges to identify specific budget reductions at three levels for 2011-13. For the UW, those cut intervals were:  The Governor’s proposed $189.8 million cut, a $218 million cut (Governor’s cut + 15%), and a $246 million cut (Governor’s cut + 30%). For scale, the UW received $627 million in state funds for the 2009-11 biennium (Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011).

Potential reductions identified by the UW and submitted by President Wise to the Legislature yesterday were sobering, although President Wise pointed out in correspondence to campus leadership that some of the examples in the letter,  “…may come to pass, but only as a result of the strategic budget process currently underway, not because of reference in the letter.”

Neither the House nor the Senate Fiscal Committee has submitted their budget proposal for the 2011-13 biennium yet and we do not know how each committee will ultimately handle the UW’s state appropriation. While we have the Governor’s proposed budget in hand, the appropriations process is far from being over. We will continue to post state budget updates to this blog as they develop.

Media coverage of our submission to the Legislature is available in the Olympian, the Seattle PI, and The Seattle Times.