News and Updates

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.

Monday’s Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) had an eye-catching story about our local airplane manufacturer and their plans to rank colleges around the nation based on the job performance of the more than 35,000 engineers who work for the company worldwide.

Richard Stephens, Boeing’s Senior VP for Human Resources and Administration and a member of the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education asked Boeing officials to match internal data from engineer personnel evaluations with the information about the colleges that they attended.  It will use this analysis to create an internal ranking system (which it plans to unveil in about a month), that will show which universities produce the workers that Boeing considers most valuable.

While Boeing plans to keep its ranking system confidential, it does plan to share the information with individual colleges and universities in an effort to help them improve themselves.  The top-ranked colleges, however, may be less interested in keeping the news quiet, according to Stephens in the Chronicle story.

Interested to see how the UW fares in this new system and whether other major employers in the nation develop similar ranking programs.

Some big changes this week at the Senate Ways and Means committee (as you know, my old stomping grounds).

David Schumacher, who has served as senior staff coordinator for the past four and a half years will be leaving at the end of the month to become Director of NW State and Local Government Affairs for the Boeing Company.  As Joe Turner from the Tacoma News Tribune so aptly put it, that’s a really long title for “lobbyist.”  David previously served as Ways and Means capital budget coordinator and as revenue analyst during part of my tenure on the committee staff.  David is also a proud Husky and it will be fun to have him on the outside of the big doors with us during the next session.

David’s replacement will be Mike Wills, who has served since 1996 as the Ways and Means budget coordinator.  There are few individuals in state government who understand the intricacies of the budget as well as Mike and he will do a great job in this new role.  Mike previously worked as budget director for the Department of Social and Health Services and as a consultant for Mathematica.

Last week, the state Senate held committee hearings in Vancouver, WA as part of their September “assembly days.”  Tomorrow and Friday, the House of Representatives takes their turn in Olympia.

Rep. Helen Sommers will chair what might be one of her final hearing as chair of the House Appropriations Committee tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.  Sommers, who has served in the state legislature since 1973 is retiring this year after 16 consecutive terms.  On the committee’s agenda is a presentation by UW Vice Provost for Research Mary Lidstrom on the status of the University’s “advanced technology initiatives” which were originally funded by the state beginning in the 1999-01 biennium.

This was one of the first attempts by the state legislature in a number of years to provide state funding for UW research activities — especially activities which had a great chance of leveraging other non-state research dollars.  In each case — infectious diseases precision forestry, computer animation and digital media — the return on investment has been significant.  An additional initiative in photonics was funded in 2001-03 which has also been quite successful.

On Friday, the House Higher Education Committee will hold a joint hearing with House Health Care and Wellness on health care provider shortages and training.  School of Medicine Dean Paul Ramsey will be one of the presenters at this meeting which begins at 10:00 a.m. in House Hearing Room A.

I meant to note this on the blog last week, but I got so darned sick on Friday I actually had to go home (and that last happened around Thanksgiving in 1990 — I think).

David Postman, chief political reporter for the Seattle Times and a fixture in Olympia for years is leaving the profession.  Postman announced on his “Postman on Politics” blog last Friday afternoon that he has accepted a new position as head of media relations for Vulcan Inc. — Paul Allen’s development company which among other projects, is transforming the Seattle South Lake Union area where UW Medicine is successfully expanding much of their biomedical research enterprise.

I first met Dave when he was a reporter for the Tacoma News Tribune where he worked briefly after moving to Washington from Alaska where he covered their state government.  He quickly got picked up by the Seattle Times and for the next several years, we developed a good relationship given his interest in the state budget process (I was on Ways and Means staff at the time).  David was hard working (I mean really, really hard working), thorough, always interested in getting beyond just the obvious story line and we shared a pretty similar sense of humor and impressions of the state political scene.

So how much did David like to get the scoop?  Not long after I was named to my current UW position, I was driving home to Olympia after a men’s basketball game in March 2004 and I get a phone call from Postman. “Hey” he says, “rumor has it the Board of Regents have decided on a new president and they’re going to announce it tomorrow.  Can you confirm what I have found out?”  “Dave,” I said “you don’t cover higher ed, why do you care?”  “It’s a hot story and I’m helping out a co-reporter,” he says.  “So, Randy, can you confirm the new president is Mark Emmert, the chancellor of LSU?”  “Who’s Mark Emmert?” I said back.  To be totally honest, I knew an announcement was going to be made but I didn’t have a clue who was going to get the job and I was so new to higher ed and the UW, I barely knew all the members of the current administration.  But Postman knew already, because he is that good.

David’s best quality was and is his intellect and curiosity about a wide variety of topics.  You can see it in the range of issues and subjects that are covered in his widely read and highly respected blog.  It’s informative, interesting, insightful and often quite funny.  Those of us who dabble in this very new medium are really just trying to keep up with Postman most of the time. 

This is truly a changing of the guard here in the capitol press corps (especially when combined with Ralph Thomas’ previously announced departure).  Change is inevitable and part of the process and I’m sure Dave is truly looking forward to his new career where I’m sure he will be very successful.

Best of luck Panis.  “Ca plane pour moi”

Yesterday afternoon, a friend of mine sent me a link to a blog post on the website of the Washington Policy Center — a conservative think tank based in Seattle.

Seems they ran across a personal services contract between the UW and Robert Longman which they correctly pointed out was for “legislative drafting and fiscal analysis related to the 2008 request for state financial assistance to remodel Husky Stadium.”  The post also correctly pointed out that the contact was extended until next June 30 and that Mr. Longman’s services are charged at $175 per hour.  That’s where the accuracy ends and the spin begins.

Both the headline and the text of the post incorrectly infer that Mr. Longman is being paid through this contract to “lobby” the Husky Stadium issue.  A more careful interpretation of the contract (and perhaps a phone call to me or interim athletic director Scott Woodward) would have revealed that Bob Longman was hired only to draft the bill which we introduced last session and to run the numbers of tax revenues from the hotel/motel, rental car and food and beverage taxes in King County which were being used to finance the stadium renovation.

You see, Bob Longman is recently retired from more than 25 years as a non-partisan attorney and revenue expert for the House of Representatives, where he worked for many years as the staff coordinator for the House Finance Committee.  Anyone who has worked in Olympia for any length of time on tax and revenue issues is aware of Bob’s impeccable credentials and the fact that since his retirement, he has had other contracts with clients in the state to perform the very same services.  Mr. Longman has never testified before a legislative committee on this issue (nor will he), he has never met personally with an elected official to ask for their support of funding for renovating the stadium (nor will he) and he is not involved in helping to write or even edit any publications that we use to help advocate for funding for the stadium (nor will he).  He’s a legal and tax consultant on the stadium project — not a lobbyist.

So, while part of my job is to help advocate for funding for Husky Stadium, it’s not part of Mr. Longman’s job or his contract with the University.  Unfortunately, information does tend to travel fast in the blogosphere, even when it isn’t completely accurate.

The state has found a permanent replacement for Dr. ChangMook Sohn as executive director of the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council.

Arun Raha, Vice President for Economic Research and Consulting at Swiss Re in New York was named yesterday as the state’s second “chief economist” the person who decides how much general fund money the Governor and the Legislature will have to write the state budget.  At Swiss Re (the world’s largest reinsurer headquartered in Zurich) Raha was responsible for forecasts of North American macroeconomic, financial and property-casualty markets.  Prior to joining Swiss Re, Raha managed Economic Analysis at Eaton Corporation in Cleveland and also served on the Ohio Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors.

Raha earned his PhD in Economics at Washington State University and has been a faculty member at Boise State University where he forecast general fund revenues for the Idaho State Legislature.  He is a recipient of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s top overall forecast prize in 2007 and the Wall Street Journal’s forecasting award in January 2005.

ChangMook Sohn, who retired in February after serving as head of the Forecast Council since its inception in 1984 recently ran unsuccessfully in the August primary for State Treasurer.  Steve Lerch, who has been serving as interim executive director of the Forecast Council since February will return to his position at the State Investment Board.

Here’s a blog post I wish I hadn’t read today.

Ralph Thomas, one of the Seattle Times political reporters who works out of the Olympia bureau is leaving the paper to work for the Katz Communications Group.  As his co-worker and office buddy David Postman points out in his entry this morning, Ralph is not only one of the best reporters I have seen in the state capitol in two decades, but he’s just a really, really nice guy.  It doesn’t even bother me that he kicks my butt everytime we play golf, because he is the first one to compliment you on a good shot and the first one to cheer you up when you duff it.

Not only is Ralph perhaps one of the hardest working and fairest reporters I have been around, he also has an uncanny ability to make you want to talk to him even when you are incredibly stressed out and busy.  Reporters call when something major is about to happen or has just happened and if they are calling you, it’s because you are in the middle of it and probably know something.  That means you are busy, high strung and worried about saying the wrong thing.  Somehow, Ralph always knew how to put you at ease and seemed willing to let you dole out the information at your pace (even though I always knew he was on a deadline and had his own pressures to deal with).  Sounds simple but let me tell you, its not that easy to get staffers or lobbyists to really open up.  His genuine fairness, accuracy and nice guy approach made him one of the best in the capitol press corps.

He will be missed — but maybe he’s got more time for golf.