News & Updates

The final 2008 UW legislation session summary is now available on the State Relations website in the “Spotlight” section.  Download and share to your heart’s content.

Although the official news of Rep. Helen Sommers decision to not seek another term in the state House rightly dominated much of the end of session press coverage, a number of other legislators have decided to call it a day at the end of their current terms.  Here’s the current list of those state elected officials who will not return in 2009 so far:

Statewide Elected Officials

Mike Murphy, State Treasurer who will retire.

Senate

• Harriet Spanel (D-Bellingham) who serves as the Majority Caucus Chair who will retire.
• Brian Weinstein (D-Mercer Island), chair of the Senate Consumer Protection and Housing committee (some press reports have indicated Weinstein is reconsidering his pre-session decision to not run for re-election).

House of Representatives

• Rep. Helen Sommers (D-Seattle), chair of the House Appropriations committee who will retire.
• Rep. Bill Fromhold (D-Vancouver) chair of the House Capital Budget committee who will work for the MAP program.
• Rep. Pat Lantz (D-Gig Harbor) chair of the House Judiciary committee who will retire.
• Rep. Shay Schual-Berke (D-Normandy Park), vice chair of the House Capital Budget committee who is moving to New Zealand with her husband.
• Rep. Joyce McDonald (R-Puyallup), ranking minority member on the House Capital Budget committee who will run for a seat on the Pierce County Council.
• Rep. Jim McIntire (D-Seattle) who is running for State Treasurer.
• Rep. Lynn Schindler (R-Spokane), House Republican Whip who will retire.
• Rep. Bill Eickmeyer (D-Belfair) who will retire.
• Rep. Bob Sump (R-Republic) ranking minority member on the House Ecology and Parks committee who will retire.

One thing I forgot to mention in the last post is the ultimate fate of the UW North Sound campus.  In short, it’s not happening this year at all.  All that’s left in the operating or capital budget is a $100,000 appropriation to the Higher Education Coordinating board to convene the interested parties in Snohomish, Island and Skagit counties to see if they can come to a consensus on a site recommendation before the 2009 session.

Here’s a story in today’s Everett Herald with reaction from many of the legislative participants.

Well, now that we’ve all had a chance to digest the details of the final legislative supplemental operating and capital budgets, I’ve come to the conclusion that given the Governor’s desire to maintain a large budget reserve, the precipitous $423 million drop in revenues in February, the $91 million in increased mandatory expenditures that were estimated the same month, and high quality of the underlying budgets for higher education, all in all, the University turned just fine in the final supplemental tally.

Let’s look at the short list of accomplishments:

• $1.0 million in ongoing support for the eScience Institute.
• $3.0 million for UW Tacoma land acquisition and soils remediation.
• Increased funding for Star Researchers by $265,000 while protecting the base funding from reductions.
• Insured authorization for $45 million in tuition and fee revenues for the UW’s 2008-09 academic year budget.

We also managed to pass a few bills of importance and fix a few with problems.  I hope to have a summary of those posted to the website soon.

Sure there are always budget disappointments, particularly not being able to plug the cut in last year’s budget for non-resident graduate students, the College of the Environment and domestic health metric research proposals and securing funding for childcare for faculty and staff.  But, we live to fight for those another day.

Thursday is Sine Die and then the 2008 legislative session will be a memory.  As usual, our preparation for the 2009 session begins this coming Monday because on Friday, I think I just might play a little golf.

The supplemental operating and capital budgets are now public.  I have posted an updated budget comparison spreadsheet in the Highlights section that includes the final conference proposals for the UW.

More to come later.

Seattle Times Olympia reporter Ralph Thomas has posted a story on the paper’s website that has been in the rumor mill for some time — Rep. Helen Sommers (D-Seattle) is officially planning to step down when her term expires at the end of this year.

The state’s longest serving legislator was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1972, and has served continuously in the House since then.  Currently, she serves as chair of the Appropriations committee which prepares the House version of the state operating budget and only recently finished negotiating the details of the 2008 supplemental spending plan with the Senate.

Sommers has been a strong advocate for higher education and the University of Washington in particular for much of her legislative career.  On a personal note, I post this entry with a mix of both admiration and sadness.  I have known her for most of my 20 years in Olympia and as a Senate Ways and Means staff member, spent many hours in budget briefings and budget negotiations with her, particularly during the 1990’s.  As the UW’s director of state relations, Rep. Sommers has been a true champion of higher education and last year’s 2007-09 biennial budget (the best the University has seen in many, many years) seems like a fitting way to cap her great career.

Day 58 just ended moments ago as both the Senate and House chambers adjourned until tomorrow morning.  Both Houses continue the slow march of passing bills and negotiating the final details of both the operating and capital budgets which will be made public tomorrow morning.  As soon as we have details on the final budget proposals, we will try to get them posted to the State Relations website.

You’ve probably noticed a lot of media coverage about the city of Seattle’s request for $75 million in public financing to renovate Key Arena as part of a push from a new potential local ownership group for either the Supersonics or another NBA franchise.  There’s been an awful lot of lobbying energy on this proposal and on Saturday, a couple hundred Sonic supporters descended on Olympia to rally for support of the request.

In the end, there wasn’t enough interest or time to do something this session.  However, what did emerge yesterday was a letter to Seattle and King County leaders signed by the Governor, the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader that proposes to include language in the supplemental capital budget to establish a legislative task force to review King County-specific revenue options to fund a number of projects in King County.  The projects mentioned in the letter include arts, low-income housing, education, youth sports, community and economic development, Puget Sound clean-up, Husky Stadium renovation, civic center projects and of course, the Key Arena proposal.

The task force is likely to be comprised of seven members, three from the House and three from the Senate, with one member appointed by the Governor.  The final report with recommendations is due by December 1, 2008.

So, it seems that while funding for a Husky Stadium renovation is certainly not going to happen in 2008, it’s possible that this new King County Projects Financing Task Force might be willing to take up the Husky Stadium renovation issue as part of its work during the 2008 interim.  So, time to take a knee and head into the locker room.  The good news, though, is that it’s probably just halftime and not the end of the game.