Budget Changes Direction Overnight

On Friday Senate Republicans took control of the Senate floor early in the evening. The Senate Republicans along with three Democrats voted together to bring an alternative budget proposal to the floor.

Though Senate Democrats made a series of procedural motions, these efforts failed to keep the Governor’s supplemental operating budget from being moved to the Senate floor for consideration.  The Senate Republicans and three Democrats then moved to amend the Governor’s budget bill with the Senate Republican budget proposal and passed the budget proposal to the House for further consideration on a 25-24 vote.

The Senate Republican budget proposal reduces funding for higher education by $30.4 million compared to the Senate Democrat budget proposal which makes no cuts to higher education.

The reductions to higher education in the Senate Republican budget are focused on institutions. The proposed budget makes no reductions to the State Need Grant program or Work Study programs. The proposal does restore awards to students who attend for-profit institutions from the 50% award reduction passed as part of the 2011-13 biennial budget.

Under the Senate Republican proposal the the maximum level of authority to waive tuition is reduced for the public baccalaureate institutions and community and technical colleges. The impact to Evergreen is a reduction of $332,000 in the second year of the biennium.

Some of the public baccalaureate institutions are further reduced to reflect update revenue projections as a result of non-resident undergraduate tuition increases implemented by an institution. Evergreen did not see a reduction for changes in revenue for non-resident undergraduate tuition increases.