Office of Governmental Relations

This morning the House Higher Education Committee held a hearing on two bills that if implemented would expand the current higher education system.

House Bill 1792 would creates the University Center of North Puget Sound. The bill assigns management and leadership of the University Center at Everett Community College to WSU to meet demands for baccalaureate and graduate degrees in Everrett, north Snohomish Island, and Skagit counties and Washington, particularly in high employer demand programs of study.

House Bill 1822 would establish the first nonprofit online university in Washington – the Western Governors University (WGU). In particular the bill expresses the intent of the state to partner with WGU to establish Western Governors University-Washington and provide enhanced access to postsecondary education for all Washington students, including dislocated workers and place bound students. Passage of this bill would result in the recognition of WGU-Washington theref as a Washington baccalaureate degree-granting institution that is self-supporting.

In addition, the bill requires the Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB) recognize and endorse online, competency-based education, work to eliminate unnecessary barriers to the delivery of online, competency-based education and work with a regionally accredited not-for-profit online baccalaureate degree-granting institution of higher education to integrate its academic programs and services into state policy and strategy.The Evergreen State College did not weigh-in on either bill.

The Committee also heard House Bill 1808 which would require all public high schools, within existing resources, work toward the goal of offering a sufficient number of high school courses to give students the opportunity to earn the equivalent of one year’s worth of postsecondary credit and must inform students and their families about these opportunities.

The bill also requires actions on part of higher education. The legislation states that institutions of higher education must develop a master list of postsecondary courses that can be fulfilled by achieving an agreed-upon score on a proficiency exam or by meeting demonstrated competencies. The bill also requires the following:

• Each institution must publicize its own list of qualifying courses and distribute it to the HECB and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges in a form that the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction can distribute to school districts.
• The HECB  must annually publish on its website the agreed-upon list of high school courses qualifying for postsecondary credit and the exam scores and demonstrated competencies meeting postsecondary requirements.

No further action was taken on any of the bills heard by the Committee this morning.

During the third week of the 2011 legislative session committees will begin to transition from work sessions to public hearings on proposed legislation.

A handful of work sessions and more public hearings are scheduled on critical issues that impact higher education. To learn more follow the links below.

This week the focus of the appropriations committees (i.e. Senate Ways & Means ,  House Ways & Means, House Education Appropriations, and House Capital Budget) will be a review of the Governor’s proposed operating and capital budgets for 2011-13, the impacts of the proposed budget on higher education, and a public hearing on the Governor’s proposed 2011-13 capital budget.

In addition, the higher education related committees (i.e. House Higher Education and  Senate Higher Education & Workforce Development) are scheduled to hear presentations regarding the recommendations of the Governor’s Task Force on Higher Education and the Governor’s proposal for reorganizing education in Washington. In addition, the committees will focus on tuition, financial aid, and governance, hearing a variety of bills that would impact these areas of higher education.

Election results in Washington continue to change one-day after the 2010 mid-term election. 

Several races, at the state and federal levels, remain too close to call, including the U.S. Senate race between Murray and Rossi and several state senate and house races.

Reports state that nearly a third of all votes have yet to be counted in Washington. These votes are expected to be counted as they trickle in via snail mail.

What we do know is that the number of Republicans and Democrats in the Washington Legislature is expected to be much closer than in the prior legislative session. In addition, the majority of initiatives on the ballot are failing with two exceptions. Both I-1053 and I-1107 are passing.

Specific to Evergreen we will likely welcome a new U.S. Representative for the 3rd District, Jaime Herrera as well as  a new state representative, Chris Reykdal. In addition, we will continue to be represented by Rep. Sam Hunt and Sen. Karen Fraser.

Stay tuned for updates!

On Wednesday, the members of the Washington Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee were presented with a preliminary report on the transparency in higher education data.

The preliminary report  found that comparable revenue, expenditure and performance information is currently available for each of the six public four-year institutions. However,    work is needed in order to understand how revenues, expenditures and performance influence one another.

Though the preliminary report found no statutory compliance issues, suggestions were made related to improving comparability and transparency of data should the Legislature want to create a more transparent and comparable system of higher education data.

• Program expenditure categories and definitions are old and may be outdated. The report suggests the Washington Office of Financial Management (OFM), with input from the Legislature, should review the categories and definitions.
• OFM no longer maintains program categories and definitions and does not review for consistency in expenditure reporting. The report suggests the Legislature should direct OFM to maintain categories and definitions and review expenditure reporting.
• Nonappropriated/nonallotted funds are not typically included in Legislative Evaluation & Accountability Program (LEAP) fiscal reports. The report suggests LEAP should develop an option for including these funds on higher education fiscal reports.
• It is not currently possible to see how much revenue is generated from different types of student fees and how each type of fee revenue is spent. The report suggests the Legislature should identify which fees it wants to track separately and then establish separate funds for those fees.
•  The institutions are not depositing all revenues from the same sources into the same accounts (e.g., student fees). The report suggests the Legislature should develop more specific statutes on which revenues should be deposited in which funds.

Beyond these suggestions, the preliminary report offers two recommendations.

• OFM should correct its Fund Reference Manual to comply with statute. Currently, statute (RCW 28B.15.031) directs that operating fees be deposited in a local account containing only operating fees revenue and related interest. The institutions use Fund 149(Operating Fees) for this purpose. However, OFM’s Fund Reference manual has a broader definition of Fund 149.
• Central Washington University, the University of Washington, Washington State University, and Western Washington University should comply with statute to correctly disclose the amount of state support their students receive. Currently, statute (RCW 28B.76.300) mandates that institutions report to students on the amount of state support that students are receiving. However, some institutions did not provide accurate and/or complete reporting to students.

The final report will be presented to members of the Committee on December 1. The four-year baccaluareate institutions and state agencies involved with the report will have an opportunity to present formal responses regarding the findings to the Committee at this time.

It appears that textbook costs to students may be lower in the future given recent federal legislative language.

The federal Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 went into effect on July 1, 2010 . Part of the language included in the bill will require the relationship between many textbook publishers and colleges to change.

As of July 1, 2010, publishers are required to disclose prices and revision information when marketing textbooks to professors, which will allow them to choose lower-cost options. In addition, publishers are required to offer all of the items in the textbook bundles for sale separately so students will not be forced to pay for materials they do not need. Finally, the Act encourages Colleges to provide a list of assigned textbooks for each course so students can shop around for the best deal.

This fall the Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts program (MyCAA) will be available again beginning October 25.

This past winter (February 2010) MyCAA was paused after a surge of applications threatened to drain its budget. At the time the program provided tuition of up to $6,000 for any military spouse to train for a portable career, one capable of enduring frequent military moves.

When the program returns the benefits will top out at $4,000. In addition, only spouses of junior service members “E1-E5, W1-W2, and O1-O2″ will be eligible and those eligible for the program will be restricted to pursuing associate degrees,certificates, and licenses.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs held another hearing on legislation that would streamline benefits for veterans under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

S. 3447 would revamp the benefit formula that has been in place since the Post-9/11 GI Bill took effect last year. The bill, as currently written, would establish a new national cap on benefits for private colleges – both for- and non-profit.

The new cap would be derived from the average tuition and fees of all private and public baccalaureate institutions across the nation, instead of the maximum benefit on the highest tuition of any public program in a given state. 

Many higher education officials are supportive of the concept of setting a national standard of benefits and agree with the goal of erasing inequities between states. However, there is concern that the currrent discussion regarding a cap would result inveterans at private institutions receiving less funding in nearly 25 states. Language for the bill is still being hammered out.

In addition, the bill would make small changes with regards to funding for undergraduate education at public institutions and extend benefits to more members of the National Guard and Active Guard Reserve.  This could potentially lead to coverage for an additional 30,000 whom were not covered by the original law.

Finally, the bill extends housing allowances to students taking courses purely online. Though the current GI Bill provides no allowance to students taking on distance education courses, the legislation under consideration would provide those students with 50 percent of the allowance given to residential students.

On Tuesday evening in Tacoma, the Governor and staff held the first of four currently scheduled statewide public hearings in Tacoma.

The media estimated approximately 450 individuals in attendance in the standing-room only crowd at the University of Washington Tacoma campus.

Approximately 140 people signed up to speak and raised several ideas with regards to the services government should and should not deliver.

Some of the ideas that were expressed, and are echoed on the transforming the budget website set up by the Governor, include no longer providing meals to state workers during meetings, reducing the number of license plates for Washington registered cars from two to one, and legalizing marijuana.

Others shared the areas of government that should not be cut including affordable housing, preservation of recreation areas, and education and health care.

The next public hearing on the budget is scheduled for July 21 from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at Everett Community College.

On the heels of the Governor’s statewide tour regarding the 2011-13 budget an interactive website was launched.

Over the next month Governor Gregoire plans to hold public hearings in Everett, Spokane, and Vancouver to share the budget decisions facing Washington and the resources that will be available for the budget as well as hear from the public their ideas and thought about what services the government should and should not deliver.

The website, launched the same day as the first public hearing in Tacoma, is an interactive website that will allow Washingtonians to share, comment, and vote on budget ideas.

The most highly rated ideas by viewers will rise to the top of the list and be considered by state budget writers.  Ideas will be posted between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Earlier this week the new chair of the National Governor’s Association announced plans to create a common set of measures to monitor progress and compare states for higher education.

The report released along with the announcement is expected to be followed by a technical guide to states in the coming weeks.

In addition, the initiative will also incorporate the following actions in the coming months.

• Develop a series of best practices and a list of policy actions governors can choose to use;
• Hold a national summit;
• Provide grants to states to design policies and programs to reach these goals; and
• Hold a learning institute for governors’ senior advisors.