News & Updates

It’s two weeks to election day, I’ve got way too many dead leaves on my lawn and it’s cold at night. Must be the beginning of another budget season in Olympia.

While the Governor’s supplemental budget is not due until the middle of December, given the state’s looming budget shortfall (estimate range from $1.2 billion to $1.7 billion), Office of Financial Management staff must surely be hard at work developing another round of difficult budget reduction ideas for the Governor’s consideration.

Today in Olympia, the Governor met with what’s left of the capitol press corps and thankfully, The Olympian’s Brad Shannon was there to write about it.  Here’s a post from his blog that provides a glimpse into the difficulties of finding savings in the state budget.

Rep. Reuven Carlyle has now posted two extremely thought provoking posts on his blog about the future of higher education in the state — what’s wrong, what needs to change, and how to make things better. Anyone who cares about higher education funding and our relationship with state government should take the time to read his thoughts. It’s not often that an elected official will speak so frankly and passionately in this type of forum.

Here’s the link to his blog.

The United Faculty of Washington which represents faculty at the four-year regional universities has recently debuted a new higher education blog.

The most recent post discusses why Washington citizens are at a disadvantage in the competition for the state’s best jobs.

Governor Gregoire has chosen a replacement for Cindy Zehnder who announced in August her plans to step down as chief of staff in the Governor’s office.  Jay Manning, who has been serving as director of the Department of Ecology will replace Zehnder effective October 19.

Manning has lead the Department of Ecology since February 2005.  He previously worked as an attorney in private practice and is also a former assistant attorney general.  He’s a Washington native who earned a B.A. in political science from Eastern Washington University and a law degree from the University of Oregon.

Here’s the official announcement from the Governor’s office.

During legislative debate on tuition increases this past session, the state’s public baccalaureate system took some pointed criticism from many corners about not being efficient or effective enough with state taxpayer dollars or student tuition dollars.   At the time, we didn’t have enough concrete information from a national comparative perspective to prove otherwise and as part of the deal to permit institutions to raise tuition to 14% per year, a performance audit of the four year system is going to be conducted by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee.

So, I’m pleased to report that the Council of Presidents staff has pulled together some remarkable information that I have recently posted to the state relations website that paints a very favorable national picture of Washington four year insitutions.  If you look under the “Resources” section to the right, you will see two new Investment Reports, one on degree productivity and one on system design that all of us in the the public baccalaureate system hope will begin to help restore legisalative confidence in the efficiency and effectiveness of all six four year institutions.

Students, faculty and staff at the University of California’s 10 campuses aren’t taking their significant budget cuts lying down. Today, rallies and job actions are planned throughout the state to protest legislative budget cuts, furloughts and tuition increases.

Here’s the story from today’s The New York Times.

The state economic and revenue forecast council met in Olympia this morning to adopt the most recent forecast of state general fund revenues.  The new forecast shows projected tax collections down $238 million for the remainder of the 2009-11 biennium.

Dr. Arun Raha, the state’s chief forecaster, indicated that the state’s economy has likely bottomed out and will soon be on the mend.  Because consumers continue to pay down debt and are guarded about spending for large ticket items (houses, cars, etc.) Washington State’s recovery will take more time than the rest of the nation.

Coupled with the decline in state revenues forecast in June, the September revenue forecast puts the state’s budget balance sheet in a $185 million negative position (even when including the use of the $245 million budget stabilization account balance).  Together with mandatory supplemental spending needs and the need to rebuild the state’s budget reserves, a number of Olympia budget officials have alluded to a 2010 supplemental budget “problem” of about $1 billion.

Governor Gregoire stated today that she will be preparing a supplemental budget for the next legislative session that accounts for the revenue shortfalls which have occured since the Legislature adjourned last spring and stated that additional spending cuts would be needed to bring the budget back into balance.

I don’t know about you but I’m still not quite fully adjusted to the fact that our primary election was held in mid-August.  I’m so conditioned to thinking about mid to late September as primary season, which of course starts me thinking about the upcoming November election.

This is an off-year election for state races as you know, although there are plenty of interesting city and county contests to follow.  There are two issues of state significance on the November ballot, however, that bear some attention.  The first is Referendum 71, which seeks to overturn a bill (E2SSB 5688) passed by the Legislature during the 2009 session related to domestic partnerships.  Voters who support the domestic partnership legislation passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor would vote to “Approve” Referendum 71.  Votes who oppose the bill would vote to “Reject” Referendum 71.

The other statewide ballot measure is Initiative 1033 which would limit the annual growth of state, city and county general fund revenue to the rate of inflation and population growth.  General fund revenues exceeding this limit must be used to reduce the following year’s state, city or county general fund property tax levy.

According to an analysis prepared by the state Office of Financial Management, I-1033 would reduce state general fund revenues by a total of $5.9 billion, county revenues by $694 million and city revenues by $2.1 billion over the next six years.  The initiative is set on a calendar year basis and if passed, would go into effect in 2011 where the loss to the state general fund budget is estimated to be $676 million.

Rep. Reuven Carlyle just completed his first legislative session as a representative from the 36th legislative district in Seattle (Queen Anne, Magnolia, etc.).  He serves on the House Higher Education committee and is a strong supporter of all sectors of education.  Here’s a recent post from his blog that expreses his thoughts on the UW’s fortunes in the state capitol that I thought many of you would find illuminating.

Thanks to all of you who have been patient with the lack of blog postings in August. I needed some time away in order to pull off a long planned relocation from Olympia to Seattle. Happy to say the old house is sold and my family and I should be moved into my new home in Seattle by mid-month.

As for state political news, I’m assuming most of you may have been reading the papers regularly, but if not, here’s some state political news that has happened recently:

• Governor’s Chief of Staff Cindy Zehnder is stepping down at the end of the month after about two years on the job.
• The Governor’s communications chief Pearse Edwards has already left to take a similar position for the Governor of North Carolina, his home state.
• State  Senator Ed Murray has decided not to run as a write-in candidate for the Seattle mayoral contest this November.
• State Senator Fred Jarrett and Represenative Ross Hunter finished out of the running for King County Executive’s race in the August 19 primary election.
• Higher Education Coordinating Board executive director Ann Daley recently announced she will step down from her post at the end of the 2010 legislative session.

More to come in the days ahead.  Hope everyone saw the great news about the Ocean Observatory Initiative grant award which was announced yesterday.  State legislative funding for the “e-Science Initiative” in the 2008 supplemental budget helped play a role in securing this historical grant for the University.

More posts in the days to come.