News & Updates

Late Sunday evening, the legislature passed the 2019-21 operating and capital budgets, marking the end of the 105-day legislative session. The budgets have been delivered to Governor Inslee for signature.

The legislature made significant investments in the UW and higher education in the final compromise budgets. The budgets provide increased funding for student financial aid and critical foundational budgetary needs for the UW. Both the operating and capital budgets include key funding to support UW Medicine and the state’s behavioral health system. The final budgets will help ensure that the UW and our hospitals will be able to advance our public service missions and better serve the needs of our students, faculty and staff, and community. Thank you to our legislators for their hard work and support of UW!

For a comprehensive summary of the operating and capital budgets, click here to view a brief prepared by the UW’s Office of Planning and Budgeting.

The UW Office of State Relations is grateful to the UW campus community, Board of Regents, and President Ana Mari Cauce for their efforts in Olympia this session. Check out President Cauce’s most recent blog post, where she provides her comments on the final budgets and results from the 2019 Legislative Session.

Stay tuned for updates during the interim.

It’s week 13 of the 2019 Legislative Session and the legislature is quickly approaching fiscal committee cutoff in the opposite house. After bills pass through their house-of-origin, they move to the opposite chamber for consideration. Bills must move to the floor of the opposite house for consideration by 5 p.m. today to remain alive. To view the legislative session cutoff calendar, click here.

Here are some of the highlights from the past few weeks:

The House and Senate have released their budget proposals
House and Senate leadership have released their 2019-21 state biennial operating and capital budget proposals. For details of the proposals, check out the budget brief prepared by the UW’s Office of Planning and Budgeting.

These proposals follow the release of the Governor’s budget proposals in December. Legislators from both chambers will begin negotiating compromise operating and capital budgets soon. The budgets must be finalized by the end of the 2019 legislative session, which is currently scheduled for Apr. 28.

President Cauce travels to Olympia for the third time
President Ana Mari Cauce visited Olympia yesterday, Apr. 8, to meet with House and Senate leaders and budget writers. During her meetings, she discussed the budget proposals and advocated for critical foundational support for the UW.

She also spoke with ASUW students in town for their legislative advocacy day. They connected on their mutual priority of access and affordability in higher education. Discussions specifically focused on the commitment lawmakers made to fully fund the State Need Grant (being rebranded as the Washington Promise Scholarship) and the importance of that funding for low-income students.

President Cauce’s passionate advocacy is essential to the legislative success of the UW. Thank you, President Cauce!

Provost Richards and UW Regents visit Olympia
The UW Provost, Mark Richards, and Regents traveled to Olympia on Mar. 26 to meet with leaders and legislators in both the House and Senate. During these meetings, they championed the priorities outlined in the UW’s legislative agenda and asked lawmakers for their support. They also demonstrated the importance of higher education to our state’s residents and economy.

Thank you, Provost Richards and Regents! The UW is very fortunate to have such strong and committed leaders.

UW experts present before House and Senate committees
Dr. Gary Stobbe participated in a work session in the House Human Services and Early Learning Committee on developmental disabilities on Mar. 27. His brief focused on the need to provide higher quality and more accessible care for people with autism. His research and hands-on experience informed his policy and funding recommendations to the committee.

On Apr. 1, Dr. Beatriz Carlini and Dr. Nephi Stella made a presentation to the House Commerce and Gaming Committee as experts on cannabidiol (CBD). Their presentation included relevant, in-depth scientific information and studies related to CBD. They also focused on the continuing barriers to this important research.

That same day, Dr. Jacob Vigdor presented before the Senate Committee on Housing Stability & Affordability during a work session on rent control. Dr. Vigdor’s presentation provided a brief history of rent control practices in Washington State and across the nation. He also presented an objective look at the use of rent control or rent stabilization in other parts of the nation.

The UW’s experts fielded questions and provided legislators with valuable information that will help inform policy decisions in the future.

Late yesterday, the House unanimously passed legislation (HB 1593) to launch plans to establish a new behavioral health innovation and integration campus within the University of Washington School of Medicine and in coordination with the UW’s health sciences schools. The proposal directs the UW to plan for a new teaching facility with a capacity for 150 patients and the ability to train current and future health care providers to address the urgent need for mental health and substance abuse treatment across the state.

Speaker Frank Chopp prime sponsored the bill – his first prime sponsored legislation in 20 years – and spoke briefly, but passionately, about the importance of the proposal. Before asking for support, he highlighted the personal impacts of our state’s mental health crisis and noted that we need “more care for the people of our state and more caregivers.” Rep. Richard DeBolt also stood to speak in favor of the legislation. He spoke to the passion of Speaker Chopp and the need to address Washington’s mental health crisis now. He said it is a privilege to be able to support the proposal because “it is a solution for the future.”

The proposal will now head to the Senate for consideration.

This week, Columns, the UW’s Alumni Association Magazine, published Down to the Core, an article highlighting the budget challenges the UW currently faces and the decisions – made over a decade ago by the legislature – that put the University in such an urgent situation.

Disinvestment

During the Great Recession, the state was forced to make dramatic budget cuts in areas across state government, including public higher education. For the UW, that meant losing over $132 million in the 2009-2011 Washington state budget and cutting per-student state funding by half. Ten years later, the state has not yet restored funding to pre-recession levels, despite the UW serving thousands more students annually. In addition, the legislature has reduced, frozen and capped tuition increases for in-state undergraduate students since 2013. This has resulted in the UW having one of the lowest in-state undergraduate tuition rates among the country’s top public research universities. While this helps reinforce the University’s mission of ensuring access to higher education for Washington students, it further contributes to the UW’s budget concerns. Between capped tuition and reduced state funding, a significant gap between operating costs and operating funds has developed, along with a backlog of deferred maintenance on the capital side.

Private Fundraising

The UW has proactively pursued private fundraising options through the Be Boundless campaign. However, private donors are primarily focused on projects that interest and inspire them, which may come in the form of scholarships, new buildings, or specific research projects. Everyday costs like keeping the lights on and paying the University’s world class faculty and support staff are not funded by private supporters. While the UW works hard to leverage private support, it is not a sustainable path to bridging the funding gap.

Quality of Education

Funding shortages have strained the UW’s ability to support its students, faculty, staff, and campuses. With the high cost of living in the Puget Sound region and limited means to compensate faculty, it has been increasingly difficult to recruit and retain the nation’s brightest faculty and researchers.

Prioritizing Higher Education

Higher education is a long-term investment into our state’s residents, our economy, and research projects with immeasurable impact on future generations. The UW is advocating for funding increases from the legislature in this year’s budget as outlined in this legislative agenda, and leaders from public institutions across the state have come together to highlight the importance of higher education. In November, UW President Cauce and WSU President Schulz came together during the Apple Cup to launch the “Yes, It’s Possible” public awareness campaign to spread the message that college is affordable and available to all Washington state residents.

It’s the beginning of week eight of the 2019 Legislative Session. Check out the highlights from Olympia from the past two weeks:

Policy and fiscal committee cutoffs

The legislature is now past policy and fiscal committee cutoffs in the house of origin, which means new policy cannot be introduced in committee and any bills not voted out of committee are now considered dead. March 13 will be the last day to consider and pass bills in the house of origin. After, bills that remain alive will go to the opposite house for consideration. To view the legislative session cutoff calendar, click here.

Sen. Cleveland testifies in support of establishing a behavioral health campus within the UW

Sen. Annette Cleveland testified before the Senate Behavior Health Subcommittee to Health & Long Term Care Committee on Senate Bill 5516, which would establish a behavioral health innovation and integration campus within the UW School of Medicine. In her testimony, Sen. Cleveland said the behavioral health campus “will change lives for the better” and that establishing the campus is a proactive and important part of the solution to our state’s behavioral health crisis.

Senate Bill 5516 was voted out of committee on Feb. 21 and referred to Ways & Means. This is the companion bill to House Bill 1593, which is prime sponsored by Speaker Frank Chopp. The House bill passed out of the Appropriations Committee and will head to the floor for a vote.

President Cauce visits Olympia

President Ana Mari Cauce traveled to Olympia for the second time for the 2019 legislative session. She met with House caucus leaders and key budget writers from the House and Senate. At this time, budgets are being discussed and drafts will soon start to form, so her visit was well-timed and meetings productive.

UW engineering dean travels to the capital

Mike Bragg, UW College of Engineering Dean, visited Olympia to meet with leaders and legislators in both the House and Senate and expressed the need for engineering degrees for Washington state students and employers. Dean Bragg spent his day advocating for state funding to help increase engineering enrollments and graduates and to support the UW’s highly successful STARS program. He also advocated for design money for a new interdisciplinary teaching and research facility for the College of Engineering in Seattle.

UW’s ISCRM updates legislators

In 2017, the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine’s received state funding to support their important and impactful mission of turning fundamental discoveries in stem cell science into therapies for today’s patients. Dr. Chuck Murray and ISCRM’s Philanthropic Chair, Lyn Grinstein, met with legislators to thank them for their support and update them on what ISCRM has been able to accomplish due to the state funding provided.