News & Updates

While all of the statewide elected races appear to be settled, there are a few possible surprises brewing at the state legislative level.  On election night it looked like Democrats might pick up a seat or two in both the House and Senate.  Now it looks possible that they may lose a seat in each chamber. 

In the Senate, Senator Don Benton (R-17) who trailed on election night has now pulled ahead and returns are trending his direction.  Incumbent Senator Marilyn Rasmussen (D-2) has now fallen behind her challenger, Randi Becker.   If those results hold, the result would be a one seat loss for Senate Democrats. 

In the House, two incumbent Republicans, John Ahern in the 6th District (Spokane) and Norma Smith in the 10th District (Island, Skagit, Snohomish) have pulled very close after trailing on election night.  Given late vote trends and the amount of votes remaining to be counted, they may well pull ahead.  Incumbent Democrat Don Barlow, also in the 6th District, continues to trail and Republicans will pick up a seat in the 26th District (Pierce and Kitsap).  Democrats earlier picked up a seat in the 17th District (Clark). 

Best guess at this point.  The House will be 62 D and 36 R and the Senate will be 31 D and 18 R.  However, as in the stock market, past performance in not a guarantee of future results – there are still a lot of votes to be counted and trends may change.  I expect we will have a better sense of the final count by the middle of next week. 
 

Wow, what an interesting election that was yesterday!  We’ll get to the invididual state races of interest in a second, but from the 50,000 foot level, Democrats seem to have strengthened their hold on power in Olympia.  Governor Gregoire was re-elected by a much wider margin than she enjoyed in 2004 and legislative Democrats appear to have made some additional gains in the Senate and House of Representatives.  Let’s take a quick look at how some of the key races played out.

Governor

Chris Gregoire wins re-election to her second term as chief executive by a margin of about 54%-46% over challenger Dino Rossi.  This might have been the biggest surprise of the evening, at least in terms of how quickly the outcome was determined.  Conventional wisdom before yesterday was this race would be much closer and take days to sort out.

Treasurer

In a close race, state representative Jim McIntire (D-46th district) defeated Republican Allan Martin 52%-48%.  Martin has served as deputy state treasurer under incumbent Mike Murphy.

Lands Commissioner

Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark appears to have defeated Republican incumbent Doug Sutherland for the position of Commissioner of Public Lands.  As of this afternoon, Goldmark had a 14,000 vote margin over Sutherland.

Superintendent of Public Instruction

Challenger Randy Dorn, a former state legislator and current head of a school employee’s union appears to have defeated long-time incumbent Terry Bergeson in this non-partisan race.  Dorn’s lead is about 51% to 49% for Bergeson.

Other Statewide Races

Incumbents Rob McKenna (Attorney General), Brad Owen (Lt. Governor), Brian Sonntag (State Auditor), Mike Kriedler (Insurance Commissioner) and Sam Reed (Secretary of State) all easily won re-election to there positions.

State Senate

While a number of races are still very close and final outcomes are uncertain, it appears the majority Democrats have held all of their existing seats and may have possibly picked up one additional seat from the Republicans.  If the results this afternoon stay the same, Democrats would hold a 33-16 majority in the Senate, a net gain of one seat from the last two years.  Here are some results from individual districts of interest.

Incumbent Republican Don Benton is trailing Democratic challenger David Carrier by about 147 votes in the 17th district (Clark County).  This race is too close to call for either candidate at this point, but “could” be a pick-up for the Democrats if results stay the same.  Democratic state house member Fred Jarrett seems to have a lock on the senate seat in the 41st district (Bellevue, Mercer Island) and San Juan councilmember Kevin Ranker appear to have easily won the state senate seat in the 40th district (Bellingham, San Juans) which was held for many years by the retiring Harriet Spanel.  All other Senate incumbents seem to be winning their races, although Democrat Marilyn Rasmussen is in a tight race in the 2nd district (Eatonville, SE Pierce County) with Republican challenger Randi Becker.

State House

Again, many races are still very close and the outcomes will not be known for a few days.  However, if current results were to hold, it looks like Democrats may have picked up at least one additional seat, giving them a 64-34 margin in the House of Representatives.  Here’s a closer look at some key races.

Don Barlow, the first term Democrat in Spokane’s 6th district  is losing to Republican challenge Kevin Parker.  While that’s a gain for the G.O.P., Barlow’s Republican seatmate John Ahern is losing to Democratic challenger John Driscoll so no net change in the balance of power in the state House from this district.

In the 10th district (Stanwood, Camano Island), Democrat Tim Knue appears to be winning his race against Republican Norma Smith who was appointed to the seat last year.  In the 17th district (Clark County), Democrat Tim Probst has easily defeated Republican Joseph James for the seat formerly held by Republican Jim Dunn who was defeated in the August primary election.  Together, these races represent a two seat pick–up for the Democrats.

In the 26th district where long-time Democrat incumbent Pat Lantz is retiring, Republican Jan Angel has a slight lead over Democrat Kim Abel, which could be a pick-up for the Republicans.  There are a couple of other races to watch as well.  In the 5th district (Issaquah, Fall City), Republican incumbent Glenn Anderson is holding on to a slight lead over his Democratic challenge David Spring.  In the 25th district (Fife, Puyallup) where Republican Joyce McDonald is retiring, Republican Bruce Dammeier has a slight lead over Democrat Rob Cerqui.  In the 30th district (Federal Way), incumbent Republican Skip Priest is leading his Democratic challenger Carol Gregory by only 51% to 49%.  All of these are races to keep an eye on in the next few days to see if they would impact the ultimate size of the Democratic majority.

That’s it for now.  We’ll post more information on the election in the next couple of days.

 

The Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB) released their preliminary 2009-11 operating budget recommendations today at their monthly meeting held on the UW Seattle campus.

Given the deteriorating budget outlook for 2009-11 which is resulting from significant declines in projected general fund revenues, Board staff have recommended a very modest level of new investments in higher education next biennium.

For example, the Board is not recommending any new funding for compensation increases – the largest single component of all higher education institutional budget requests.  In addition, Board staff are not recommending funding for any “general” enrollment increases, although they did recommend funding for some high demand enrollments and a community college system on-line learning initiative.

For the UW, the HECB operating budget recommendations are as follows:

Maintenance level budget adjustments      $76.9 million
High demand enrollments                        $14.2 million
College of the Environment                      $6.0 million
Biomedical Research                                $4.5 million

TOTAL 2009-11 Increase                        $101.6 million

By the standards of the 2007-09 biennium, these are austere recommendations, particularly the lack of funding for cost of living adjustments for faculty and staff, enrollment increases for the Tacoma and Bothell campuses or funding for many worthy University initiatives.  However, given the worsening state revenue picture (the next forecast is November 19 and is likely to decline again), these budget recommendations could potentially be a high water mark.
 

While Washington State contemplates how to dig itself out of a projected three plus billion budget hole for next biennium, three of the nation’s sunshine states continue to experience even more dire budget situations which are already having severe impacts on those state’s higher education systems.

In California, what Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters calls the recently enacted “smoke and mirrors” budget has already collapsed like a house of cards and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is forced to call the legislature back into session next week to fix a six week old budget which is already $10 billion out of balance.  Just last week, University of California (UC) officials cancelled cost of living or merit based pay increases for all faculty and staff this year.  Contributions to the UC retirement system are also scheduled to increase due to declining investment returns — the first time in two decades contributions have been necessary.  Further reductions are in the works which could be in the range of 10 percent depending on the outcome of the next budget balancing legislative session.

The Arizona Republic reported today that Arizona State University (ASU) is preparing to lay off 200 or more faculty associates and dramatically boost some class sizes next spring as it prepares for more budget reductions.  Some lecture style classes could jump from 300 to 1,000 students.  These actions come as ASU prepares for an additional $25 million in state budget reductions on top of the $30 million in cuts the university has alread made in the past year.  ASU officials have no plans at this point to reduce enrollment or eliminate any majors.

In Florida, the gloomy state economy is continuing to create a lot of uncertainty for public colleges and universities which had to take major budget cuts in the most recently enacted state budget.  Florida’s private colleges are nervous, worried about declining returns on private endowments as a result of the turmoil in the financial markets.  Less money for private schools means many students will turn back to public universities for their education, but many Florida schools have had to freeze enrollments the past few years to cope with budget cuts.

One can’t help but wonder how prophetic these reports may be for the future of higher education in Washington.

Hard to surf the national websites these days without reading about budget misery all around the nation and the plethora of proposals out there to cut funding for higher education.  At least half of the states are projected to be in some current or future state of fiscal distress and as has been in the case during recent economic downturns over the past 30 years, higher education generally bears the brunt of the reduction.

South Carolina just cut public higher education by 15 percent and warned institutions not to raise to tuition to compensate.  Arizona just completed a devastating budget session that saw double-digit cuts to higher education and the postponement of a much trumpeted construction bond issue which would have jump-started a number of access and research capacity projects.  Governor Patrick in Massachusetts has told public colleges and universities they will lose 5.6% of their state funds to help balance the budget and in Pennsylvania, 4.25% cuts are being planned to university budgets.

In Washington State, budget reductions of about 2% have been proposed for the current fiscal year and all of us in higher education anxiously await the Governor’s 2009-11 budget recommendations in December to see how the projected budget gap will be dealt with, especially if new taxes are off the table.

At the same time we read about upcoming budget challenges, discussions continue to look for ways to expand higher education opportunities in the Puget Sound region.  It’s been awhile since we talked about the efforts to create a new UW North Sound campus, but discussions lead by a consultant to the Higher Education Coordinating Board continue to explore potential compromises on a site for the yet to be located and funded campus.  The Everett Herald recently ran this story about how a new UW North Sound campus is playing out in the Gregoire-Rossi contest for Governor.

Conversations also continue on how to expand four year degree opportunities on the Kitsap Peninsula.  A number of ideas have been discussed in meetings held this interim including establishment of an academic center or increasing the ability of Olympic College in Bremerton to offer more four year degrees.  And most recently, Bellevue Community College has raised the idea of broadening its academic mission to offer four year degrees as well.

I suppose the good news on all of this is that a lot of well-intentioned folks continue to believe in the importance of expanding higher education opportunities, particularly the idea of producing more four year degrees.  One wonders, however, how to balance such enthusiasm against the realities of the state’s budget situation and the importance of continuing to support and strengthen the existing system of public higher education institutions in the state.

Here’s a sobering story from the Boston Globe.

One of the United States notable “generational contracts” has been the notion that our children would be more likely to graduate with a college degree than their parents.  That was certainly my parent’s dream for me, neither of whom had an opportunity to get a four-year degree.

But a new study by the American Council on Education has found that degree granting rates for younger generations are beginning to stall.  The percentage of younger adults with a bachelor’s degree was about 27% in 2006, a decline from the 29% who held degrees only three years earlier.  The numbers for Hispanics and American Indians are less encouraging.

Sorry to have been away from the blog for so long, but a family trip and my new duties as Interim VP for External Affairs have pushed the blog to the background for awhile.  However, budget news continues to dominate the last few entries and today is no exception.

At noon today, Governor Gregoire announced a series of budget actions which will reduce spending in the current 2009 fiscal year by a total of $330 million.  The components of these reductions include $90 million from the hiring, equipment and travel freeze she announced last month, $200 million in new savings the Governor directed her budget office to find after the most recent revenue forecast, and another $40 million in savings recently requested by the Governor due to the turmoil in the financial markets.  Here’s the official news release from the Governor’s Office.

Conversations with staff in the Governor’s budget office today indicate that the UW’s share of these reductions is $9.6 million, which represents about two percent of our total FY 2009 state funds appropriation.  It’s important to note that this is not an “automatic” budget reduction, but will be included in the Governor’s budget recommendations to the Legislature.  Ultimately, it will be up to the state legislature to decide whether these reductions are implemented and how much will be cut from each agency’s current biennial budget.

The September revenue forecast for the Washington state general fund dropped a combined $529 million when the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council met this morning in Olympia.  Dr. Steve Lerch, the state’s interim chief economist stated consumers have been hit hard by bad news and remain extra cautious, influencing spending and state tax collections.

Governor Gregoire immediately directed the Office of Financial Management to find an additional $200 million in savings in the current biennial budget, without affecting vital programs.  This would be on top of the $90 million in savings anticipated from the recent freeze on state hiring, equipment purchases, out of state travel and personal services contracts.

The $529 million revenue drop is divided roughly equally between the current 2007-09 biennium (-$273 million) and the ensuing 2009-11 biennium (-$256 million).  The revised forecast leaves $86 million in unobligated budget reserves and $442 million in the state’s “Rainy Day Fund.”

Assume that many of you have seen this morning’s news release by the UW concerning Scott Woodward and his appointment today as Director of Intercollegiate Athletics.  Scott has been my boss for the past four years and I have a lot of mixed feelings about the news.  I’m happy for him that he is going into a job that he clearly wants and for which he has some exciting challenges ahead.  I’m sad because I will miss working closely with him on a regular basis to help advance the University’s agenda in Olympia.  But, that’s life.

Scott’s departure means some changes for yours truly too.  President Emmert has asked me to take over Scott’s position as Vice President for External Affairs on an interim basis, at least through the end of the 2009 legislative session (and who knows when that might be?).  And to add to the excitement, I get to keep my job as Director of State Relations too.  Guess I’m the victim of the state hiring freeze.

Seriously, I’m quite honored and humbled to be chosen to try and fill-in temporarily for Scott and I can tell all of you who follow the blog that my postings are probably going to be a little less frequent for awhile until I get settled into managing these dual roles together.

But today’s Scott’s big day so let’s send all the good karma we can down Montlake Way. Go Dawgs!

As you will recall, at the end of the 2008 session, the legislature gave $100,000 to the Higher Education Coordinating Board to convene the interested parties in the region and develop a consensus recommendation for a permanent site for a UW North Sound branch campus.

The Everett Herald reported this past Sunday that the HECB has retained the services of Bill Wilkerson to carryout their consensus-building task for a North Sound campus location.  Wilkerson is well-known in Olympia circles, having previously served as head of the state fisheries department and as the former executive director of the Washington Forest Protection Association.  The HECB is surely counting on his many years of experience negotiating a bevy of contentious fishing and timber disputes to help bring the Snohomish, Island and Skagit county participants together on this issue.

Wilkerson’s contract runs through November 30 and a report to the legislature is due December 1.