Well, this has been a very interesting 24 hours.
One of the odd outcomes that resulted from the passage last fall of Initiative 960 (I-960) is the opinion from the state’s Solicitor General that agencies, like the University of Washington, need to ask the legislature this session to essentially “re-authorize” tuition and fee increase authority previously granted in the underlying 2007-09 biennial budget or in existing statutory law. For all of state government, I have been told there are more than 400 individual fees that need re-authorization this session.
Obviously for the UW, this involves not just undergraduate and graduate tuition amounts, but literally dozens and dozens of individual fees ranging from fee-based programs in Educational Outreach to student activity fees, laboratory fees, health fees, technology fees, etc. The reason for the uncertainty is that our Regents adopt tuition and fees on an “annual” basis and since I-960 passed last November (before tuition and fees will be adopted by the Regents for the 2008-09 academic year), we need to ask the state legislature for permission all over again in this legislative session.
So, is there a problem? Well, it’s unknown at this point. Tonight at 6:00 p.m., the House Appropriations committee will hold a public hearing on a brand new bill, HB 3381, that is intended to be an omnibus vehicle for re-authorizing these various fee increases. The uncertainty at this point is that the bill is what is called a “title only” measure and as of 5:00 p.m. today, does not contain any fee re-authrorization provisions.
The UW, along with other higher education institutions will be testifying this evening in support of an amendment that would provide the necessary statutory re-authorization for all of our tuition and fee increases scheduled to go into effect in the 2008-09 academic year. Not to worry you to much, but without this amendment, up to $45 million of tuition and fee revenue will be cut from the 2008-09 academic year budget. That would be a really big problem.
As you can imagine, we have been working pretty hard down here since we got word of the problems with this bill yesterday afternoon. Keep an eye on the blog for updates on this and other issues as we head towards adjournment next Thursday.