News & Updates

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.

Finally, a post that has nothing but good news.  No shortfalls, no dour projections, no worry and angst.  Just this —

The University of Washington Men’s Basketball team won its first outright Pac 10 championship in 56 years on Saturday with a victory over WSU.  Savor the moment here.

Thanks Coach Romar, thanks team, thanks Dawg supporters!  This is some March madness we can get fully behind.

This weekend Curt Woodward of the Associated Press had a story about polling that is being done by interest groups to identify taxes that the public might be willing to raise to help with the budget shortfall.  You can read the story here.

Any tax increases proposed as part of the budget process are almost certain to be referred to voters through a referendum.  Don’t expect a budget proposal to be rolled out by Senate Democrats (who get the first turn at a proposal this year), until after the March 19 revenue forecast.  But with the “preview” forecast in February, the recent updates to state caseload estimates, and the Supreme Court’s ruling on Initiative 960 a number of the major moving parts have fallen into place.

All of our request legislation remains alive, having passed the floor in at least one house in advance of Wednesday’s floor cutoff.  That includes SB 5734 (tuition setting authority for graduate school and out-of-state students), SB 5760 (streamlining public works processes), and HB 1640 (protecting private investment information given to our endowment).  Long floor sessions are continuing — we will update other bills of interest as the cutoff draws closer.

We’ve passed the halfway point of the 2009 session.  The early part of next week will be filled with floor action in advance of the March 12 cutoff for bills to clear their house of origin.  As a result, the published hearing schedule is light, with only the House Higher Education committee scheduled to meet at 8am Thursday to consider bills that have come over from the Senate.  A few more hearings may be added, but the big push to consider bills from the opposite house will come the following week.

The next piece of the budget puzzle will come into focus today when the caseload forecast council meets to revise estimates of the demand for state services (school enrollments, corrections, health care).  Joe Turner at The News Tribune has a good blog entry that tries to put together all of the moving pieces into a bottom line number.