House Democrats Move Budget to the Floor

 The House Democrats moved their 2012 supplemental operating budget to the floor yesterday, Tuesday, February 28. Several amendments were proposed, with 9 total passing. Among the amendments, several were technical in nature and do not affect the budget. Others restored partial funding to various departments such as the Department of Ecology’s Water Quality Financial Assistance program and in the State Conservation Commission. Others that passed deal with “what if” scenarios. Specifically, if the budget improves by certain amounts in 2013, funding that is currently delayed in the House budget for the K-12 sector will be restored.  None of those amendments have an impact on higher education.

In a somewhat rare occurrence, the budget was placed on final reading (known as “third reading”) last night but not voted upon. It now awaits final passage on the floor. Once that happens, the budget will move to the senate where the two chambers will begin negotiations to come to one final budget proposal.

Washington Senate Proposed 2012 Supplemental Budget

The Washington State Senate Democrats released their 2012 supplemental operating budget this morning, Tuesday, February 25th. The Senate proposes NO cuts to higher education.

“The budget honors the highest priority of families and communities across the state by making no cuts to current K-12 or higher education funding, recognizing their importance to the future of our residents and our state,” said Sen. Ed Murray, chair of the Senate Ways & Means Committee.

The budget taps revenue from legislation to end the tax exemption on interest on mortgages for national banks and end an exemption on sales tax on wind power generation equipment ahead of schedule. Savings were also achieved from the better-than-expected case load and revenue forecast of $340 million.

Opportunity to comment on the budget will be tonight at 5:30 in Senate Ways & Means. Upon passage in Ways & Means the budget will move to the Senate floor.

Over the next weekand a half House and Senate budget leaders will come together to reconcile their budgets. If all goes accordingly, we will expect to see a final budget proposal early to mid-next week with final passage in time for the end of the supplemental session, sine die, on Thursday, March 8th.

House Committee Moves 2012 Supplemental Operating Budget

On Saturday members of the House Ways & Means Committee took action on the Washington House’s proposed 2012 Supplemental Operating Budget.

The budget, as passed by the Committee, made several changes to multiple parts of the budget. Overall the budget passed by the Committee provides for an additional $54.9 million above the budget originally proposed by the House Democrats.

With regard to higher education, the budget as passed by the Committee makes the following changes:

  • Eliminates funding for the STEM Degree Incentive Program in the Student Achievement Council (the new HECB entity) and redirects the funds by appropriating them directly to Eastern Washington University, Western Washington University, Central Washinton University, and The Evergreen State College. The amendment requires that the funds appropriated to the universities and college are to be used only for direct costs of instruction associated with this enrollment expansion
  • Requires the student achievement council (new HECB entity) to convene the Higher Education Loan Program Work Group. Requires the Work Group to develop methods for funding the loan program in the future as well as recommendations regarding the best loan program structure for providing financial aid to underserved populations. Sets out certain factors that the Work Group must take into account in making their recommendations. Provides a due date for the resulting report of December 1, 2012 and appropriates $50,000 for this purpose.

The House’s proposed 2012 Supplemental Operating Budget will now move to the House Floor for consideration.

2012 Supplemental Session: Week 8

The eighth week of the 2012 supplemental session comes on the heels of a long week of policy committee meetings.

February 24 marked the final deadline for policy bills to move forward in the budget. Bills, unless necessary to implement the budget, must have moved from the policy committees to the floor or a fiscal committee. 

Following this deadline, the fiscal committees in both the House and Senate kicked-off their work. The House and Senate Ways & Means Committees held long hearings and executive sessions on Friday and worked through the weekend to meet the next deadline in the process.

The House and Senate have until end of day on Monday, February 27, the first day of Week 8, to move bills from a fiscal committee to the Senate or House floor. Both chambers will then have until Friday, March 2 to pass bills not necessary to implement the budget.

So the committees to watch this week are the fiscal committees in the House and Senate. The appropriations committees (i.e. Senate Ways & Means ,  House Ways & Means, House Education Appropriations) will take up the policy bills referred to committee in order to determine what bills will move forward to the floor by the next deadline as well as take action on the supplemental operating and capital budgets.

President Obama’s Vision for Teacher Reform

Last Wednesday, February 15, Education Secretary Arne Duncan unveiled the Obama Administration’s $5 billion proposal to improve the teaching profession at every level – recruitment and retention, training, the career ladder and pay and tenure.

The program, known as the RESPECT Project (Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching), would be structured much like “Race to the Top” – the competitive federal grant program that asked states to submit performance proposals.

Although the details have yet to be developed, Duncan vowed to take a “comprehensive” look at the teaching profession. Among the changes, those that may affect Evergreen are:

  • Reforming Teacher Colleges and making them more selective
  • Creating new career ladders for teachers
  • Improving professional development

According to Duncan, this is the first time the Obama Administration has taken such a comprehensive look at the overall teaching profession  – including the teacher-training programs that feed into it.” He went onto say, “Many of our schools of education are mediocre at best … many teachers are poorly trained and isolated in their classrooms.”

What this means for Evergreen at this point is unknown. We will continue to monitor and update the blog when new developments unfold.

 

 

 

President Obama’s 2013 Budget for Higher Education

Last week, President Obama unveiled his 2013 proposed budget, including his plan for higher education. This year President Obama’s proposal called for a variety of new expensive programs, from $8 billion in additional funding to community colleges, to additional money for the Perkins Loan program and a $1 billion “Race to the Top” for higher education.

Under the President’s proposal, funding for the National Science Foundation would increase by 5 percent, to $7.4 billion and the National Endowment for the Humanities  would get a slight increase, from $146 million to $154. The American Opportunity Tax credit is also made permanent – providing up to $2,000 per year for tuition.

With a goal for the US to “lead the world in college graduates by 2012,” specifics include:

  • Sustaining the maximum Pell Grant award of $5,635 through the 2014-2015 award year.
  • A one-year measure to prevent student loan interest rates from doubling this summer and doubles the number of work-study jobs over the next five years.
  • New reforms that shift federal aid away from colleges that do not keep tuition low.
  • Making permanent the American Opportunity Tax Credit.

Libby Nelson of Inside Higher Ed notes, “College leaders may not like all of the president’s proposals,” including, the recent controversial idea of tying campus-based federal financial aid to measurements of “value.” In this proposal, federal aid would be shifted away from colleges that do not keep net tuition low. She also notes that subsidized loans for financially needy undergraduate students would take another hit in the President’s proposal – “borrowers would lose eligibility for the program if they stay enrolled full-time longer than three years for an associate degree, or six years for a bachelor’s.”

 

Washington House Democrats Proposed 2012 Supplemental Budget

The Washington State House Democrats unveiled their 2012 Supplemental Operating budget proposal this morning. In an effort to keep higher education accessible, the House proposes significantly less reductions than Governor Gregoire’s proposed budget from December.  The higher education sector took a total reduction of $65 million. Of the $65 million, the four year public baccalaureates were cut $30 million, while the community colleges took $35 million of the cuts. In addition to the $65 million, an additional $10 million was cut from the state need grant program. No money was cut from the work study program.

The University of Washington and Washington State University did receive some funding for science and technology degrees, leaving a net cut of $51 million for the higher education sector.

What this means for Evergreen:

The reduction to Evergreen is roughly 3% or around $1.1 million in operating revenue for the biennium. Keep in mind, this is on top of the back-to-back budget cuts Evergreen has seen over the past 5 years. Any reduction will result in continued negative impacts to the institution. However, these proposed reductions are much less than the $160 million cut to the higher education sector Governor Gregoire proposed back in December.

One area where the State achieved savings, but where impacts will be felt, is in health care.  According to the Olympian, “like the GOP, the Democrats propose cutting the $850 per employee monthly allocation for health and other insurance benefits to $800. Gregoire proposed $825.”   Both the Republican and Democratic House plans cut the state contribution to the Public Employee Benefits Board by about $33 million, but the Democrats do not call for the 24-day furloughs that the GOP did.

We are continuing to sift through the fine details of the budget to ensure additional cuts were not taken in other sections of the budget and will report back when we know more.

Washington House Republicans Release 2012 Supplemental Operating Budget

On Friday, the Washington House Republicans released its proposed supplemental operating  budget for the remainder of the biennium.

2012 Supplemental Operating Budget Proposal
The proposed supplemental budget makes approximately $840 million in state funding reductions. The budget leaves $651 million in reserves and does not put forth a revenue package.

The budget reduces funding for higher education by $105.3 million. Of this amount, state funding for community and technical colleges is reduced by $14.5 million and state funding for the four-year, public institutions is $15 million lower. The Evergreen State College is reduced by $541,000.

The majority of the reductions to higher education come through policy changes to state funded financial aid programs. The State Need Grant program is reduced by $75.8 million. This reduction is achieved by altering eligibilty guidelines in two ways. First awards for students attending baccalaureate institutions are limited to 12 quarters (4 years) and for students attending two-year institutions their awards are limited to 6 quarters (2 years). In addition only those students who file their Federal Application for Federal Financial Aid (FAFSA) by the March 15th deadline would be eligible to receive a State Need Grant.

In addition the proposed budget would restore funding to private, for-profit institutions, previously reduced in the 2011 biennial budget. Finally the proposed budget maintains current funding for the state work study program and eliminates funding for remedial education for those under 20 at community colleges.

The proposed budget would also reduce state employee monthly health benefit funding rates form $850 to $800 ($33.1 million) and institute 24 days of furlough for all state employees, including those at higher education institutions, beginning July 1, 2012 ($91 million). The exception to the furloughs would be any state employees working for critical services such as corrections and hospitals.

In addition to the reductions to higher education the proposed budget makes the following reductions to achieve a total savings of $840 million.

  • Reduces funding to the Department of Ecology by 14%
  • Eliminates all general fund spending for the Puget Sound Partnership
  • Makes $33 million in administrative efficiencies in information technology, goods and services, personal service contracts, travel, equipment and cell phones.
  • Reduces most general government agencies by 5-10%

The House Republican’s budget proposal will be followed by a proposal put forth by the House Democrats on February 21. The Senate’s proposed operating budget is expected to follow next week.

 

2012 Supplemental Session: Week 6 & 7

The sixth and seventh weeks of the 2012 supplemental session are when everything trades places in Olympia.

Valentine’s Day marked a deadline for both the House and Senate. All bills orignating in the House or Senate must have passed their respective chamber and moved to the opposite chamber. The House had until the end of today to move bills from their respective policy committees to the floor or a fiscal committee. The Senate has until Friday, February 24 to move policy bills out of committee.

This will be followed by marathon fiscal committee meetings beginning February 24 and going through February 27.

This week the focus of the higher education related committees (i.e. House Higher Education and  Senate Higher Education & Workforce Development) will be to move bills forward to the floor or to an appropriation committee.

In the meantime, the appropriations committees (i.e. Senate Ways & Means ,  House Ways & Means, House Education Appropriations) will begin to take up the policy bills referred to committee in order to determine what bills will move forward to the floor by the next deadline – February 27 which marks the date by which bills must move from their respective appropriation committee and to either the Senate or House floor.

Revenue Forecast

This morning the February state economic and revenue forecast was released.  The forecast shows projected General Fund revenues for the current biennium up by $95.7 million compared to the prior quarterly forecast in November. However, according to state budget director Marty Brown,  the real net gain is $45 million, because legislation adopted in December drove more than half of the gain.

According to the Olympian, in addition to the positive gain in revenue, “the recent caseload forecast showed lower demand for services, which is providing a larger, $330 million gain on the state’s balance sheet through June 2013.”

Interim state forecaster, Dr. Steve Lerch, did caution that the growing European economic debt crisis is cause for concern.  Looking to the future Lerch  predicts slow growth around 6.6% for the 2013-2015 biennium. While he cautions that Washington won’t reach pre-recession employment levels until 2014, he notes that Washington should outpace national rates. He warns, however, “while we think we are doing better than the U.S., this is still not great.”

What this means for the budget:

The slight uptick in revenue, when combined with the caseload savings, provides roughly an additional $375 million in savings for the state. Remember, revenue was down in November, so these savings bring the November shortfall down to roughly $1 billion.

During the forecast, Democratic Representative Ross Hunter, budget chair in the House, said the House will unveil their supplemental budget proposal between Monday and Wednesday of next week. Senator Ed Murray, budget chair for the Senate, said theirs would follow in the days or week following. Once both budgets have been unveiled the two chambers will begin negotiations to reconcile the two.

Whether new revenue proposals (i.e. tax measures that would go to the ballot) are still on the table, remains unknown at this point. According to Murray, a week ago he was sure his caucus would push ahead with the measure. “The recent news could change that, he said. Now it is a question.”