On Wednesday, the House Ways & Means Committee received a brief presentation regarding the recommendations put forth by the Governor’s Committee on Transforming Washington’s.

The Governor’s Office released a list of ideas representative of committee members. The ideas fall into five major catgories.

• Restructuring Ideas
• Budget Ideas, Cost Savings and Other Ways to Pay for Services
• Privatization or Outsourcing Ideas
• Better Customer Service Ideas
• Regulatory Ideas

No votes were taken by the Committee. In addition, the recommendations provided were not developed with an  attempts to achieve consensus or to represent a majority opinion. Instead, the list contains ideas put forward by at least one of the committee members.

Several ideas were put forth that would impact the four-year higher education sector if implemented. In addition, several more would impact higher education institutions as public agencies.

Restructuring Ideas

• Decide if four-year universities are state agencies or not. If they argencies or not. If they are agencies, then the Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB) should become a cabinet agency with full authority over the four-years. If they aren’t agencies, funding could be switched to block performance agreements with additional funds structured around the student achievement initiative the two-years are using.

Budget Ideas, Cost Savings, and Other Ways to Pay for Services

• Consider moving to an outcome-based funding model for higher education including: (1) Fund students on a per-credit basis rather than funding institutions; and (2) Pay for degree completions rather than student enrollment.
• Increase tuition so students pay a higher proportion of higher education costs.
• Negotiate master contracts and require joint purchasing of reference data bases by law libraries and higher education institutions. The state should buy in bulk in order to get better prices. Regarding law libraries – this purchasing at lower rates could also benefit county law libraries. Purchasing should allow at least some public access.
• Limit state support to one baccalaureate degree per individual. Individuals seeking another BA degree would pay full cost of second degree.
• Increase the building fees on student tuition – so students contribute more to the cost of higher education buildings.
• Dedicate a portion of revenues from patents and royalties generated from research at universities and colleges to a higher education building funds.

Privatization and Outsourcing Ideas

• Incentivize greater private higher education investment in the state. Look at options to privatize programs and components of colleges and universities. Balance with concerns regarding quality and cost-effectiveness of some of the current private for-profit programs.

The Governor will now study each of the ideas and determine which are viable either in the short or long term. Ideas that can be successfully implemented, save money, or improve the delivery of services to the people of the state will be included in the Governor’s budget proposal in December. Ideas which the Governor chooses not to pursue at this time may be picked up by members of the Legislature or others for consideration at any time.