News & Updates

Policy committee cut-off is today so I thought I’d take a moment to provide an update on a number of bills we are keeping a particularly close eye on this session.

HB 2825/SB 6637 — Allowing certain permit holders to obtain alcohol in nonbeverage form directly from suppliers

This is the UW’s bill that would permit us to buy industrial alcohol directly from suppliers instead of going through the state liquor board.  The House version passed the full chamber yesterday by a vote of 95-0 and will be sent to the Senate.  The Senate version is in their Rules committee awaiting a pull to the floor.

SB 6848 — Financing for Husky Stadium

This bill had a public hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee last Tuesday February 5.  We are awaiting executive session in the committee.

SB 6328/HB 2648 — Enhancing campus safety

The Senate version of the Governor’s campus safety bill is in Senate Rules awaiting a pull to the floor. The House version is in House Appropriations Committee.  We are supporting both measures since the substitute versions have corrected most of our concerns.

HB 2646/SB 6639 — Requiring bereavement leave for employees of higher education institutions

The UW along with all other four-year schools had opposed this legislation because it is something which should be discussed as part of collective bargaining and because it creates an unfunded mandate.  The bills were heard in both the House and Senate policy committees but did not pass.

HB 2548/SB 6391 — Establishing a UW branch campus in Everett

The House version of the UW North Sound bill was heard this morning in the House Appropriations committee.  The Senate version is expected to be heard next Tuesday in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

HB 2641 — Creating a pilot program to test performance agreements at institutions of higher education

This bill has been sponsored for several years by Rep. Fred Jarrett (D-Mercer Island) and Rep. Skip Priest (R-Federal Way) and the UW has been supportive of the idea of establishing such contracts for many years as well.  This bill would establish a performance agreement pilot program with the UW and Western Washington University and creates a process for developing and negotiating the contracts during the upcoming 2008 interim.  The UW is supporting the bill and other four year schools are seeking to be added to the pilot program.

HB 3329/SB 6903 — Prioritization of public four year institution capital project requests

This is a relatively new bill which was just introduced last week.  It would abolish the existing Council of Presidents joint capital budget prioritization process established in 2003 with a new prioritization process managed by the Office of Financial Management.  The measure also calls for a capital facility financing study that would assess capital financing systems in other states and examine potential new revenue sources for higher education capital projects.  The UW has been working with the Council of Presidents to analyze the legislation as introduced and is requesting two major changes.  The first would be to eliminate a requirement that the research universities submit separate capital project requests for branch campuses and all other campus projects and the second is to add four year institutional participating in the upcoming financing study.  A substitute to the Senate version of the measure was released today with addresses these two concerns and will be heard next Monday.  The original House version was heard earlier this week and executive session is scheduled for next Tuesday.

More than halfway through cut-off week and I’m really pooped today.  I actually nodded off in the back of the Ways and Means hearing room waiting for a hearing on a bill that the committee never got to.  I really need to get to bed a lot sooner I think.

I hope many of you got a chance to catch some of the media coverage of the Husky Stadium bill hearing yesterday in the Senate Ways and Means committee.  I thought Governor Evans, Coach Willingham and Scott Woodward did a very good job explaning the serious safety problems with the stadium and clarifying a number of questions about the proposed legislation.  No doubt this is a controversial issue but I believe that even the most skeptical legislators got a chance to see the significant deterioration of the stadium and better understood the need to move quickly on renovation given the Sound Transit project coming soon.

As for the UW North Sound issue, the House version of the bill that establishes the UW branch campus in Everett cleared the House Higher Education committee on an 8-2 vote on Monday.  The bill now goes to the House Appropriations committee.  Meanwhile, the Senate Ways and Means committee canceled today’s scheduled public hearing on the Senate version of the same measure.  It is possible that a hearing on the measure might be scheduled next week.

Work continues in earnest on our supplemental budget request items.  There has been considerable discussion by legislators on the campus safety items and so far, there appears to be very little enthusiasm among a number of House members to spend very much money in this area.  With the help of a lot of folks on campus, we have been successful in amending several bills of concern, particularly in the human resources area, and we will continue to work on possible changes to others as action moves to the full House and Senate later next week.

More hearings tomorrow and a marathon House Appropriations committee hearing on Friday since many legislators will be heading back to their districts this weekend for presidential caucuses.

The campus legislative briefing I was hoping to have on February 12 has now been rescheduled for Friday February 15 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Regents Room, third floor of Gerberding Hall.  Hope to see many of you there.

It’s week number four in Olympia and this Friday is cut-off day for all standing policy committees in the House and Senate.  As a reminder, that generally means if it hasn’t moved onto a fiscal committee or the rules committee by Friday, it’s dead for the session.  So, you can bet this will be a week packed with round the clock committee hearings, impatient and tired legislators and anxious lobbyists.

Both House and Senate Higher Education committees continue hearing policy bills on Monday at 1:30 p.m.  Executive session on HB 2548, which would establish a new UW branch campus in Everett is expected in the House Higher Education committee at the same time.  Here’s today’s story in the Everett Herald about the current status of this issue in the state legislature.

Later that evening, the House Commerce and Labor committee will hold a public hearing on HB 3332 which applies only to institutions of higher education and would, among other things, permit the Governor to submit a funding request for a collective bargaining agreement that was not finalized by the current deadline of October 1.

On Tuesday at 1:30 p.m., the House Capital Budget committee will hold a public hearing on a brand new bill (HB 3329) sponsored by Rep. Bill Fromhold (D-Vancouver) and introduced at the end of last week.  The bill would make significant changes to the capital budget prioritization process for four-year institutions.  The measure abolishes the existing Council of Presidents managed process which was established in 2003 and instead places the prioritization responsibility with the Office of Financial Management.  The new process would be based on the existing process used by the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges and would place four year capital projects into different categories (access, economic development, renovation, etc.).  Of concern to the University is another requirement in the measure which would require development of two priority lists of capital projects — one for our two branch campuses and one for all other projects.

The public hearing on SB 6848, sponsored by Sen. Margarita Prentice (D-Renton) which would provide public financing for a renovation of Husky Stadium will be held Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.  Former Governor and UW Regent Dan Evans, Interim Athletic Director Scott Woodward, and head football coach Tyrone Willingham will testify in support of the measure on behalf of the University.

On Wednesday, the Senate Ways and Means committee will hear Sen. Paull Shin’s SSB 6391 which is the Senate version of the UW Everett branch campus legislation.  Sen. Derek Kilmer’s legislation (SSB 5978) which would study the baccalaureate needs of the Olympic and Kitsap peninsulas is scheduled for a public hearing at the same time.

I’m sure I’ve just scratched the surface of what is likely to be a fast and furious week.  Just for your information, I am tentatively scheduling an in-person campus legislative briefing for February 12, so stay tuned for more details.

…… that I started working for the state of Washington.  On Monday February 1, 1988, I walked into the offices of the Senate Ways and Means Committee in what is now the A,B,C conference rooms in the John A. Cherberg Building to begin working as a fiscal analyst for the Washington State Legislature.  The Friday before, I was literally working in the same capacity for the California State Legislature.  Yep, I moved jobs and states in one weekend and started work three weeks into a legislative session.  No, I would not recommend that to you or anyone else.

Anyway, two decades later, I’m still working for Washington State, albeit in a different state agency and a different city.  Sixteen years on staff with the Senate Ways and Means Committee and now four years representing the UW and I am still really having a blast.  As I get ready to speak to an Evans School class next week, it’s also encouraging to see so many students continuing to have an interest in public service (note the UW was once again #1 in Peace Corps participation for the second year in a row).

No time for punch and cake.  There are bills to follow and budgets to lobby.

And I’m not just talking about the weather (which has been miserable as you know).

Tomorrow we hit the one-third mark of this legislative session and while policy committees are in a full blown state of frenzy as they approach their cut-off dates next week, the hallways and corridors are filled with some apprehension and anxiety about the state of the Washington economy and what might happen to the next general fund revenue forecast.

Tomorrow, the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council will hold its quarterly economic review meeting and on February 15, will release it’s updated projections of general fund revenue collections for the remainder of the biennium.  The preliminary news from legislators and staffers who follow these issues closely has been a bit gloomier than anyone would like.  While the state’s economy is still considered stronger than many others around the nation, most all of the hot housing market which fueled the last two years of unprecedented revenue growth is gone.  Couple that with a strong chance of a national recession and it’s hard to be very optimistic about the future.

While the current consensus is for a short and shallow economic dip, even modest changes to the state’s revenue forecast can cause havoc for budget writers because even small percentage drops could mean the loss of one or two hundred million in the forecast.  With all eyes on the size of the ending fund balance (which the Governor made her top supplemental budget priority), a drop in the revenue forecast in two weeks could mean all those wonderful ideas we have for additional spending might have to be reduced or possibly postponed.

Well, at least the mood seems to match the weather.

Today at noon, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education chair Rep. Kathy Haigh (D-Shelton) released the details of her 2008 supplemental operating budget recommendations.  Unfortunately, the proposed budget represents a step backwards for the UW from the Governor’s budget recommendations issued in December.

A total of $100,000 in funding for the UW’s community alert system (which had been included in the Governor’s budget) was removed.  In it’s place, the chair’s budget included $88,000 for one new mental health professional to provide counseling services for UW students.  While the University is supportive of the student request for additional mental health counseling positions, it was not intended to come at the expense of previously requested funding for campus security items.  A total of $125,000 for the Ruckelshaus Center to conduct a land use study was retained from the Governor’s original recommendation.

In addition, the $1.1 million included in the Governor’s budget for the UW North Sound campus was shifted to the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges to expand enrollment growth in two-year partnerships with other four-year institutions in the Snohomish, Island and Skagit county areas.  The funds would also be used for outreach and marketing to other two year and public schools in the region.

The chair’s proposed budget includes no funding for any additional UW supplemental operating budget requests, including restoration of the non-resident graduate subsidy reduction from last year’s biennial budget, campus safety items, etc.

The Washington Student Lobby secured the inclusion of $2 million in new funding, equally split between the Higher Education Coordinating Board and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, for their priority legislation HB 2582, which will significantly increase the amount of funding for student childcare throughout the entire higher education system.

The UW’s $250,000 request to enhance childcare opportunities for faculty, staff and students was not funded.

The committee is scheduled to take public testimony on the chair’s recommendations tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. and is scheduled to act on the proposal in committee Wednesday evening.  For those of you who want to read the details on your own, you can access the subcommittee’s budget recommendations at: http://leap.leg.wa.gov/leap/budget/detail/2008/ho2008EDp.asp

Just wanted to pass along some thoughts about the UW North Sound hearing on Friday afternoon in the House Capital Budget Committee.

During the first couple weeks of session the debate on the new campus has been starkly different between the two legislative chambers.  In the Senate, most of the disagreement seems to center on whether the new branch campus belongs in Everett, Marysville or Lake Stevens.  In the House of Representatives, however, while there are similar divisions over the potential location, a much more serious discussion has surfaced which revolves around whether the state should develop a new UW branch campus at all.

In the preliminary academic plan the University submitted to the Governor and the Legislature last November, the estimated cost of the new campus was estimated to be between $600 and $800 million once the campus reached at optimum level of 5,000 students.  The study further concluded that in order to insure that the new campus could provide a concentration of courses in science, technology and engineering, the institution should be built as rapidly as possible.

Obviously, such an ambitious capital investment for just one new campus could present some difficult challenges for a state capital budget which is struggling to pay for existing obligations while assuming new future financial requirements for K-12 capital construction.  This has resulted in a lot of understandable uproar in the halls of the state capitol and caused a number of House members to wonder if the state can really afford a new UW branch campus in Snohomish County.

These were precisely the issues that Rep. Bill Fromhold (D-Vancouver) wanted to see discussed at last Friday’s work session on higher education capital and the projected costs of a new UW North Sound campus.  Marilyn Cox from Planning and Budgeting and I were joined by Rep. Hans Dunshee (D-Snohomish) at the presenters table to talk about this issue and take questions from committee members.

From my vantage point, the work session went very well and served as an excellent example of how the legislative committee process can both educate and illuminate difficult fiscal policy issues.  In our remarks, I think Marilyn and I provided the members with a clearer sense of the basis for our UW North Sound capital estimates and how different assumptions about how fast or perhaps how “incremental” the legislature chooses to grow the new campus can produce different cost estimates.  We also tried to reinforce the point that rapid capital development can insure that the new campus can more quickly provide critical courses in science, technology and engineering.  A slower or more incremental approach will delay the introduction of these more expensive course offerings.

The fate of the UW North Sound campus is still weeks away as the 2008 legislative session is far from over.  I think Friday’s committee meeting provided those in attendance a better sense of the academic trade-offs involved in various approaches to the capital development of UW North Sound.

Two weeks have now passed in the 2008 legislative session and I think we feel in State Relations like we are finally getting caught up with what seems to be another record batch of bills introduced so far.  By next week, I hope to have a list of “UW High Priority Bills” posted to the Spotlight section of the website and it will be our intention to keep that updated every couple of days or so.

In the meantime, let’s go over a few bills of significant interest to the University of Washington so far this session.

SB 6848 — Financing the renovation of university stadium facilities

I guess you had to have been out of the country the past week or so to miss the considerable attention heaped upon this measure.  This is one of two University request bills.  As you have probably already read, this bill would provide financing for a portion of the cost of renovating Husky Stadium.  In brief, the bill “re-purposes” several King County-only taxes (rental car, food and beverage and hotel/motel) which will be finished paying for Safeco Field, the Kingdome repairs and Qwest Field over the next several years.  These revenue sources would then be used to finance 50% of the debt on a planned $300 million renovation of the stadium.  The other half of the project would be paid by the UW from new revenues from premium seating and donations from Husky supporters.  The bill is sponsored by Sen. Margarita Prentice (D-Renton), the chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

SB 6637/HB 2825 — Allowing certain alcohol permit holders to obtain alcohol in nonbeverage form directly from suppliers

This is the University’s other request bill for the 2008 session and is probably as non-controversial as it’s stadium cousin is controversial.  The bill would allow the UW to purchase ethanol (industrial alcohol) directly from national suppliers instead of going through the State Liquor Board.  The University uses 8,000 gallons of ethanol per year for medical and research purposes.  Due to the closure of our Central Stores operation at the end of 2007, purchasing must be done by individual campus units using the ProCard system.  Because the Liquor Board does not take credit cards, we worked with the Board to draft this legislation which would permit us to buy ethanol directly instead of having to go through the Board system.  We’ve had public hearings on both the Senate and House versions of the measure.  The House bill passed easily out of the House Commerce and Labor committee on Friday and the Senate bill is expected to pass out of committee early next week.

SB 6391/HB 2548 — Authorizing an additional University of Washington branch campus

These bills sponsored by Sen. Paull Shin and Rep. Hans Dunshee would establish a third UW branch campus in Everett at the downtown Pacific Station site.  There are two other measures (SB 6352 abd HB 2814) sponsored by Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen and Rep. Dave Quall which would establish certain priority criteria for establishing a new branch campus including whether the site is “centrally” located within the Snohomish, Island and Skagit county areas.  A third bill, SB 6490 sponsored by Sen. Steve Hobbs, would establish a new UW branch campus in Lake Stevens at the Cavalero site.  Sen. Shin’s measure has passed out of the Senate Higher Education Committee and referred to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.  The other Senate bills have been heard but not acted upon.  Both House measures will have a public hearing on Monday January 28 in the House Higher Education Committee.

SB 6328/HB 2648 — Enhancing campus safety and security

These measures sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Rep. Deb Wallace were introduced at the request of the Governor.  The measures are designed to improve the safety of all university and college campuses by improving campus safety planning and dissemination and provides for regular review of campus safety planning and procedures and new state reporting requirements.  Both bills were heard in their respective higher education committees last week.  The UW, along with other institutions support the measures but have recommended several changes designed to clarify certain requirements and avoid some unintentional consequences.

HB 2582 — Regarding child care at institutions of higher education

This bill sponsored by Rep. Mary Helen Roberts is the 2008 priority legislation for the Washington Student Lobby.  The meausure replace an existing HECB childcare competitive grant program with a program that awards both competitive and matching grants to higher edcuation institutions for student child care.  Funding which would be included in the state operating budget would be matched dollar for dollar with student fees from each school.  Sen. Derek Kilmer has also introduced SB 6730 which is also designed to improve and enhance child care services and resources for state institutions of higher education.

More on other legislation in the days to come.

Senator Paull Shin’s bill (SB 6391) which establishes a new UW branch campus in Everett at the Pacific Station site was passed out of the Senate Higher Education Committee this afternoon by a vote of 5-1.  Committee members Shin, Derek Kilmer, Jean Berkey, Jerome Delvin and Mark Schoesler voted in favor, while Tim Sheldon voted against.  The bill now goes to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

As I mentioned in this morning’s post, the House Appropriations Education Subcommittee will hold a work session tomorrow morning on the UW North Sound campus issue and the House Capital Budget Committee will hold a work session on Friday to discuss future capital costs for the campus.

The House Higher Education committee has yet to scheduled a public hearing on Rep. Hans Dunshee’s bill (HB 2548) which would also establish the UW North Sound campus in Everett.