News and Updates

The end of this week was a preview of the storyline for the remainder of the 2009 session — all budget, all the time.  With the revenue forecast in, Senate Democrats are making final adjustments to their spending proposal before rolling it out, possibly late next week.

It will also be the last full week for policy committee hearings.  Our request legislation (tuition setting authority for graduate and out-of-state students, streamlining the public works contracting process, and protecting sensitive information given to our endowment) all is progressing, having been heard or scheduled for hearing.

Last week, the Governor proposed a tuition surcharge for the next two years.  Today’s Seattle Times has a story making it clear that Guaranteed Education Tuition (GET) units would cover any surcharge. The effect of tuition increases on the GET program, which is dealing with reduced returns on investment, is a key part of overall higher education budget discussions.

Finally, mark this time — Saturday at 2:40.  (No — it’s not a legislative cutoff.)  That’s when the Dawgs tip it off against the Purdue Boilermakers on the way to the Sweet 16.  OK — we know we have to take it one game at a time, but thanks to Coach Romar and the Husky team for providing some much needed celebration and excitement.

The state Economic and Revenue Forecast council met this morning and the news was not good.  The forecast shows another revenue reduction of over $550 million for the remainder of this biennium and the next — that makes the total budget shortfall around $9 billion.  Some of that gap will be filled by federal stimulus help and other steps that have been taken to reduce spending, but lawmakers are still looking at a budget hole of around $4 billion.  Here is a link to the Seattle Times coverage, and the press release issued by the council.  More on this as it develops.

36th District Rep. Reuven Carlyle has penned a thoughtful opinion piece for the Seattle Times on his proposal to increase tuition at four-year colleges, paired with a substantial increase in financial aid.  According to Rep. Carlyle:

As we write the most difficult state budget in generations, I’m pushing hard for comprehensive tuition-policy reform. I’m strongly advocating a proposal to grant our state’s public four-year universities the authority to raise resident undergraduate tuition by up to 12 percent annually, elevating the existing 7-percent cap. The schools would be required to designate a substantial portion of the new revenue toward new grants targeted at middle-class students.

As the situation exists today, these students and their families are caught in a horrible Catch 22: too wealthy to receive financial aid and too poor to comfortably afford college.

In Washington, a mere 20 percent of lower-income students successfully attend universities — making us a shocking 39th in the nation in this category — yet our state’s entire tuition model pretends to be designed around their interests. The “low tuition” model in Washington is an emperor with no clothes.

In Pennsylvania, by contrast, tuition is double that of ours, yet it is first in the nation in the percentage of lower-income students accessing higher education. The “high financial aid, high tuition” model is good policy but tough to digest politically.

Under the tuition model I’m proposing, middle-class families of four with annual incomes of between $52,500 and $73,250 would qualify for meaningful, need-based, state financial assistance for the first time. We can create the largest expansion of financial aid to the middle class in decades.

You can read the entire column by Rep. Carlyle here.

Seattle Chamber of Commerce President J. Tayloe Washburn had a good opinion piece on the Seattle PI blog laying out a strategy for supporting job growth and innovation in the economy. On higher education, Washburn wrote:

Invest in Higher Education, Our Human Infrastructure. There is no question that the most successful regions in future decades will be those that have large numbers of educated workers. Washington state has made impressive progress in many areas in recent years in expanding its breadth and depth in graduate degrees in many sectors.

The current state budget deficit and other economic challenges have put these investments at risk. While the state legislature faces a range of very tough challenges and tradeoffs in trying to balance the budget, it must recognize how short-sighted it would be to cut off on our greatest investment in a strong future economy–our institutions of higher education. Cutting enrollment and programs at UW and WSU will invariably lead to our best researchers and faculty leaving the state. We cannot afford this and must redouble our efforts as a state to continue to invest in our future by keeping our institutions of higher education strong.

You can read the entire piece here.

Today Governor Gregoire proposed a temporary surcharge for students attending state universities to help deal with the budget shortfall.  Details are still to come, but the Seattle Times has the rough outline of what the Governor’s budget office is considering.  Expect more details and plenty of discussion in the coming days.

Both the Seattle Times and Tacoma News Tribune ran major articles today about the difficult and unpleasant choices facing budget writers as the legislature moves into week 10 of the session.  Andrew Garber penned this front page story that focuses on the state Senate and the options that they are debating internally as the deadline for releasing their spending blueprint looms in the next couple of weeks.  Further south, Joe Turner of the News Tribune has this lead story which covers similar territory with reaction from members in both chambers.

With the floor cutoff passed, lawmakers return to the hearing rooms next week.  On Wednesday the House Higher Education Committee is scheduled to hear SSB 5734 which would extend for another six years tuition setting authority for graduate, professional and out-of-state students.

In the Senate, the Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee has scheduled a Tuesday hearing on a bill that would revamp the financial aid system (HB 2021).  Our request bill protecting private investment information supplied to the endowment (HB 1640) is up for hearing on Friday.  On Wednesday the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on an important bill that will bring needed uniformity to rules governing fund management by nonprofits.

A number of committees have left their calendars open, so additional bills may be added to agendas in coming days.  Also, on March 19 the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council meets for its formal session.  Last month the Council met for a preview, revising the forecast downward.  No major changes are expected, but some slight adjustments may be made.  Senate budget writers are expected to unveil their biennial spending proposal sometime after the forecast meeting.

The first cutoff for floor action was today.  March 30 is the next cutoff for bills that have come over from the opposite house to clear policy committees.  Also during that time (most likely after the formal revenue forecast on March 19), Senate budget-writers will unveil their proposal.

All of the UW’s request legislation remains active and the hearing process will begin again in earnest next week.

And hopefully this will become a staple of the blog the next few weeks — Go Dawgs! Congrats to the Husky Men’s basketball team on winning their Pac 10 tournament game against Stanford today.

Over the last several years prepaid tuition programs have gained popularity as a way to save for college education and hedge against rising costs.  Washington’s GET (Guaranteed Education Tuition) program has been very successful, but like all of these programs the economic slump has affected the investment income needed to fund the purchased credits.  Washington backs its plan, guaranteeing a payout to participants but making the problem more complex for policymakers.  This article has an excellent summary of some of the challenges facing prepaid tuition programs.

Floor action continues and two more bills of interest have moved forward.  HB 1640, our request bill to protect private investment information submitted to the endowment, has cleared the House.  The Senate version passed earlier in the week.  Also, HB 2254, which would allow innovative financing for building projects, has received House approval and now moves to the Senate.  The floor cutoff is March 12 at 5 p.m.