Tag Archives: Budget

House Releases Operating Budget

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Yesterday morning the Washington House released a proposed 2015-17 biennial operating budget.  The budget provides $2.4 billion in policy increases, responds to the $2.4 billion maintenance level shortfall and provides a $341 million ending funding balance.

The budget includes policy increases for increased costs of K-12 health benefits and a COLA ($356 million), enhancements to basic education ($661 million), funding for mental health, ($103 million), and funding for early learning and child care programs ($222 million).

For higher education the budget provides $257 million for financial aid and a tuition freeze and $253 million for state and higher education employee compensation and benefits.

To offset the $5.1 billion in policy increases, maintenance level funding costs, and the ending fund balance, the House proposes $2.6 billion in policy level reductions – the largest of which is modification of I-1351 ($2 billion) – revenue increases of $1.5 billion and additional moneys through fund transfers and reversions.

 Higher Education

The House’s proposed budget freezes tuition at current rates over the next biennium.  The budget provides dollars to offset the tuition freeze, providing funds to increase compensation and inflationary costs at institutions.

In addition the House increases funding for the State Need Grant by $53 million. The funds are
expected to serve approximately 24 percent of the currently 34,500 unserved students as well as increase private award amounts by 3.5% per year beginning in FY 2017. The budget also provides $60 million to provide the state’s match for the Washington Opportunity Scholarship Program. The budget also suspends the Washington Scholars Program, Washington Award for Vocational Excellence, Community Match Program, Foster Care Endowment, and Future Teachers Loan Repayment and Conditional Scholarship Program.

Finally the budget makes investments in  other key areas:

  • Funding is provided to the Washington State University to establish a medical school in Spokane. Two and half million are appropriated to support the accreditation process. The remaining amount will support the education of medical students in the WSU medical school ($8 million).  In addition, $9.4 million is transferred from the Washington State University to the University of Washington to support the continued education of medical students enrolled in the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho (WWAMI) program located in Spokane. Finally an additional $3 million is provided to the Family Medicine Residency Network located at the University of Washington to expand the number of residency slots in Washington.
  • Funding is provided to computer science. Eight million is provided to the University of Washington to expand computer science and engineering degrees, $2.2 million is provided to Washington State University to establish software engineering and data analytics programs at the University Center in Everett and an electrical engineering program in Bremerton, $910,000 is provided to Western Washington University to establish a computer and information systems security program at Olympic and Peninsula Colleges and $1 million is provided to Bellevue College to create a bachelors of science degree in computer science.
  • Funding is provided to  Western Washington University ($1.2 million), Eastern Washington University ($996,000), The Evergreen State College ($750,000) and Central Washington University ($715,000) to expand student advising and support services that lead to increased degree completion.
  • Funding is provided to support  the collective bargaining agreements and arbitration awards reached between state employees and the Governor or Institutions of Higher Education and to state agencies and institutions of higher education for a general salary increase for employees not represented by a collective bargaining unit.

Evergreen

The House’s budget freezes tuition for undergraduate, resident students for the biennium at Evergreen. The budget provides $2.954 million to offset the tuition freeze, providing funding funds for increased compensation and inflationary costs that institutions.

In addition the budget provides The Evergreen College $750,000 in the second year of the biennium to expand student advising and support services that lead to increased degree completion.

Finally, the budget does not provide funds to eliminate the student backlog in computer science at Evergreen. Currently 50-75 students.

Revenue

The House budget is supported by $1.5 billion in proposed revenue. The proposed revenue package includes a 5% excise tax on capital gains profits. Revenues from this tax would be placed into a new “Student Investment Fund” to be used for K-12 and higher education investments.

For higher education the fund would support the House’s proposed investments for the State Need Grant, funding to support the tuition freeze, investments in computer science and engineering, funding for the WSU medical school and residencies, and investments in innovation including the student services support for the comprehensive institutions and Evergreen.

The package also reinstates the increase on the B&O service tax rate by 0.3% and increases the Small Business B&O Tax Credit for services businesses by nearly double. Finally the package taxes transactions from out-of-state online retailers and repeals and narrows seven tax exemptions.

Next Steps

The House Appropriations Committee will hold a public hearing on the proposed operating budget on Monday, March 30 with action scheduled to move the budget to the House floor on Tuesday afternoon.  The House Finance Committee is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the revenue proposal (HB 2224) on Tuesday morning.

 

House Postpones Hearing On Budget

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Late this afternoon the House postponed the public hearing and executive session on the proposed biennial operating budget.

The proposed operating budget, along with the proposed capital budget, will still be released tomorrow, March 27 at 11:30.

Both budgets are now scheduled to have a public hearing on Monday, March 30 with an executive session scheduled for Tuesday, March 31.

Stay tuned!

Next Week Deadlines and Money

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Next  week the House and Senate will continue to advance policy legislation forward in the process. Both chambers have until April 1 to advance policy bills to either a fiscal committee or the floor of the opposite chamber.

The House and Senate Higher Education committees will each meet once to take final action on any policy legislation this session.

In addition, the House Capital Budget is scheduled for a public hearing on the House’s proposed biennial capital budget on Monday followed by an executive session on the budget on Tuesday.

It is expected that the Senate will release its budget proposals either sometime next week or early in the week after.

Finally between policy deadlines and budget news, the House and Senate fiscal committees will begin the long work of advancing bills to the floor. Both chamber must move all bills to the floor in the opposite chamber by April 7, unless the legislation is deemed necessary to implement the budget.

Nearly a Month In…

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Washington is nearly a month in to the 2015 legislative session. Activity abounds.

In the House, the 2015 supplemental budget passed off the floor late last week and the Appropriations Committee has held a public hearing on the Governor’s proposed biennial budget.  In addition, the Capital Budget Committee took testimony on the Governor’s proposed biennial capital budget.

The House Higher Education Committee opened the legislative session with several work sessions focused on timely topics including access and affordability and areas of study that lead to good jobs – highlighting computer science, rural health care, and maritime industries. Beginning last week, the Committee began hold public hearings on legislation introduced this session. The focus of bills introduced this session have ranged from efficiencies and transparency within higher education to strategic planning to access and affordability policies.

The Committee will continue to hold public hearings and begin executive sessions through this week and likely most of next week as the first legislative deadline nears at the end of February.

The Senate has followed a similar path.  The Senate Ways & Means Committee opened the session with a public hearing on the Governor’s biennial operating budget followed by two work sessions focused on higher education funding and capital construction.  This week the Committee will hold a public hearing on the Governor’s proposed biennial capital budget.

The Senate Higher Education Committee also has taken time to focus on topics of the day in higher education, such as medical education, campus sexual assault prevention, and higher education funding.  Beginning last week the committee focused on advancing legislation introduced this session, giving attention to a series of bills focused on financial aid and transparency. The committee will continue this work this week with hearings on sexual assault prevention legislation, tuition policy, and veterans.

Finally, the Committee has held a series of conversations with trustees and regents appointed by the Governor to serve on higher education related public boards.

Governor’s Budget Released

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On Thursday Governor Inslee released his proposed 2015-17 Operating and Capital budgets.  The budget – Book 2- reflects the Governor’s focus that “after more than a decade of cutting vital services and neglecting obligations,… it is time to start reinvesting in Washington”. The budget proposes a mix of spending cuts, new revenue and reserves to pay for education and services.

The Governor also submitted, as required by law, a budget – Book 1 – that would provide for a balanced budget within existing revenues.

Governor’s Proposed Biennial Operating Budget

The Governor’s proposed budget – Book 2 – invests $2.3 billion in education.  Under his proposal the budget would provide funding to reduce class sizes statewide for kindergarten through third grade, meet the state’s commitment to fully fund basic education, make major investments in early learning, target investments to increase student success and boost graduation rates and freeze resident undergraduate tuition.

The budget also makes a number of other investments:

  • Increase mental health bed capacity to prevent inappropriate boarding of psychiatric patients
  • Hire more than 100 child protective and child welfare services workers to speed up investigations of abuse and neglect and ensure safe conditions for children in foster care
  • Boost staffing levels at state parks to restore services and catch up on a backlog of maintenance work
  • Implement the Governor’s proposed market-based carbon pollution reduction program
  • Prevent and respond to oil spills along rail lines and reduce toxics in our waters
  • Provide modest pay raises for state employees

The budget proposes tax and revenue changes ($1.4 billion) in combination with reserves and reductions to support the biennial operating budget. The budget uses $450 million from reserves and includes $211 million in General Fund spending reductions. Finally the proposal maximizes federal funds and shifts general fund costs to other fund sources to save an additional $212 million.

Among the tax and revenue changes is a new capital gains tax ($798 million) on the sale of stocks, bonds, and other assets to increase the share of state taxes paid by the wealthiest taxpayers, new revenue from a market-based carbon pollution reduction plan ($380 million), and a repeal of a sales tax exemption for trade-ins valued over $10,000 ($105 million).

 Higher Education

The Governor’s proposed budget freezes tuition for undergraduate, resident students for the biennium. No additional dollars are provided to offset the tuition freeze. The Governor will also introduce legislation to: (1) return tuition setting authority to the budget, (2) eliminate differential tuition, (3) repeal negotiation of Higher Education performance plans, (4) repeal publication of the 60th percentile global challenge states comparisons, and (5) amend financial aid mitigation provided with tuition setting authority so that any institution that exercised tuition setting authority above levels assumed by the legislature in 2011-13 and 2013-15 will continue to provide the financial aid mitigation.

In addition the budget makes an investment in math and science for each of the public baccalaureate institutions and the CCTCs and provides compensation at 3% and 1.8% for classified, professional, and faculty employees. The proposed funding only recognize the general fund portion. The remaining funding to support the compensation request is presumed to come from tuition but the budget prohibits increases in resident undergraduate tuition. This is also reflected in the health benefit increase. The budget also makes a handful of specific investments in other programs including the health professions, ocean acidification, and renewable energy.

Finally the budget maintains current funding for the State Need Grant and increases funding for the College Bound Scholarship program to recognize caseload increases.

It is worth noting that the Governor’s proposed budget without new revenues would result in a 10% reduction to higher education.

Evergreen

Under the Governor’s budget tuition would be frozen for undergraduate, resident students for the biennium at Evergreen. No additional investments are made to the College to offset the tuition freeze.

In addition the budget invests in math and science at Evergreen and provides compensation at 3% and 1.8% for classified, professional and faculty employees. The funding levels for compensation only recognizes the general fund portion, or just over a third of the cost. The remaining funding to support the compensation request is presumed to come from tuition but the budget prohibits increases in resident undergraduate tuition. This would require institutions to fund the rest from institutional dollars. For Evergreen this is $1.82 million. This split is also reflected in the health benefit increase. Evergreen would need to provide an estimated $169k.

Finally the budget requires Evergreen to report on STEM outcome measures, provides funding for several Washington State Institute for Public Policy studies in Evergreen’s allocation, and retains budget language in support of the Longhouse.

It is worth noting that the Governor’s proposed budget without new revenues would result in a 10% reduction to higher education, this would be a reduction of $2.13 million annually to Evergreen.

Capital Budget
Governor Inslee also proposed a biennial capital budget for higher education. The Governor provided funding for several projects across higher education. This includes funding for three projects at Evergreen – Lecture Hall Renovation Construction, Lab I Basement Construction funding, and Seminar I Renovation Predesign.  The budget also provides authorization to purchase the Tacoma Campus property.

In addition the budget includes funds to support facilities preservation, minor works, and preventative facility maintenance and building system repairs.

Next Steps

The Governor’s budget is the first of many budgets that will be released to address the 2015-17 biennium. While the Governor’s budget is the first step in the budget development process, there will be at least four more legislative budgets to review as the legislative session progresses.

The Washington Legislature will convene on January 12 to begin its work to develop a biennial budget.  Over the next 105 days, the House and Senate will hold work sessions and public hearings on the gubernatorial proposed budgets as well as the budgets put forth by each chamber before finalizing a conference budget.

Governor’s Budget Out Next Week

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Next week the Governor will roll out his biennial budgets over several days.

The week will kick-off with education. The Governor will make public his plans to make investments in education including early learning, K-12, and higher education.

Each following day the Governor will release additional parts of his proposed budget – Tuesday – transportation, Wednesday – climate change, and Thursday – the entire proposed biennial budget.

Reports suggest there are some things to watch for:

  • Major investments in early learning, kindergarten through high school, and STEM training
  • Investments to keep college affordable
  • New revenue

Stay tuned…

Evergreen Submits Biennial Budget

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Late last week Evergreen along with other state agencies and higher education institutions submitted the College’s 2015-17 biennial operating and capital budgets to the Office of Financial Management (OFM). OFM anticipates the arrival of 165 agency budget requests for consideration in the development of the Governor’s biennial budget proposal due in December.

Operating Budget

Evergreen’s operating budget seeks to build on the state’s leadership over the last biennium to support the first investment above maintenance level funding since the beginning of the Great Recession. Evergreen experienced an increase in state funding of 5.2% in the 2013-15 biennium. The investment by the state reduced the financial burden on students and families. Even with the enacted biennial budget, however state funds and tuition remain far below the level of support received prior to the Great Recession.

Within this context Evergreen’s operating budget builds on the 2013-15 biennial budget as a first step in a multi-biennial approach to stabilize funding for students, faculty and staff by supporting higher education. Evergreen is asking the state to maintain the support and investment the College received in the prior biennium. The request focuses on the need to support critical infrastructure for the College including market-rate compensation and maintenance operations. In addition the request asks for additional support to ensure that current programs and services are maintained at a level that recognizes student and state demands.

In particular the request proposes building on Evergreen’s quality STEM undergraduate programs, especially in the area of computer science and current efforts to reach out to underrepresented student populations with a focus on Latina/o students.

Finally, in accordance with OFM instructions, the College submitted a 15% budget reduction, which would more than reverse the gains made in higher education in recent years and dramatically impact Evergreen’s strong performance. After years of budget reductions the college would have very few options for absorbing a cut of this magnitude. At the same time further tuition increases are likely to suppress student demand especially given Evergreen’s commitment to serve low-income students.  To meet this level of reduction Evergreen would make reductions at the expense of current access to higher education.

Capital Budget

Evergreen’s biennial capital budget is consistent with prior submissions and continues to tightly integrate operating and capital budgets.  The request focuses on preservation of the College’s facilities and infrastructure. The request emphasizes the construction of the Lecture Hall Renovation as Evergreen’s top priority.  In addition the request includes funding for the Science Lab I basement construction and Seminar I Renovation predesign and design. The request also asks for authorization to enter into a Certificate of Participation through the Office of the State Treasurer for $12.5 million for the purchase of a permanent site for the Tacoma program. Finally the request includes funds for minor works and facilities preservation.

Legislature Sine Die; Final Actions of the 2014 Supplemental Session

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The Washington State Legislature ended the 2014 supplemental session this evening. The Legislature formerly sine die around 11:30 p.m.

The Legislature began work this morning and spent a long day moving the budget and a series of bills. Among the bills advanced to the Governor’s desk was legislation to provide in-state tuition for veterans (SB 5318).

Early in the evening the House  (85-13) and Senate (48-1) passed the supplemental operating budget.

Despite the passage of an operating budget and several bills the Legislature was unable to reach agreement on a supplemental capital budget.

 

 

President Obama Release FY15 Budget: Higher Education Impacts

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Yesterday President Obama released a proposal for funding the federal government for FY15. The proposal would make several changes to higher education.

The request would provide level-funding for most student aid programs and basic research programs, but would provide funding for several ambitious new higher education proposals.

The budget would maintain discretionary funding for the Pell Grant program at the same level as last year.  This will allow the maximum award to jump by $100 to $5,830 because of an automatic, mandatory increase in funding. With regard to the Pell Grant the budget also issues a call to “strengthen academic progress requirements in the Pell Grant program to encourage students to complete their studies on time” and restores a pathway to Pell Grants for students who don’t have a high school diploma or GED.

The budget also makes permanent the American Opportunity Tax Credit and makes changes to federal financial aid programs.

The more daring proposals include:

  • College Opportunity and Graduation Bonuses (10-year budget, $7 billion):  The program would reward colleges that successfully enroll and graduate significant numbers of low- and moderate-income students on time, and encourage all institutions to boost performance by providing grants to institutions based on their number of on-time Pell graduates. Institutions would be allowed to use these funds to expand need-based financial aid, enhance student instruction and support strategies, and adopt other best practices to increase college access and success for low-income students.
  • State Higher Education Performance Fund ($4 billion): A competitive state grant, these funds would support systemic efforts to reform and improve the performance of public higher education systems and make college more affordable, especially for low-income students.
  • First in the World ($100 million): Building on the 2014 competition, the budget increases funding to support innovative strategies and practices shown to be effective in improving educational outcomes and making college more affordable for students and families.
  • College Success Grants ($75 million): A competition that would support sustainable strategies to reduce costs and improve student outcomes through awards to Historically Black Colleges or Universities and other Minority-Serving Institutions.
  • Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Expansion: Extend PAYE to all student borrowers, regardless of when they borrowed. The budget also would reform PAYE to safeguard the program for the future and ensure that program benefits are targeted to the neediest borrowers.

The President’s budget is largely a political document. Congress has already set budget levels for federal spending. Senate Democrats have commented that they will not produce a budget but will instead directly allocate funding program by program. The House Republicans have indicated their budget proposal will be released later this month.

House Committee Moves Legislation to the Floor

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This morning the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education held a public hearing on a handful of Senate bills.

The committee heard legislation that requires higher education institutions to adopt a policy to award academic credit for military training courses/programs and provide the policy to enrolled students who have listed prior or present military service in their application (SB 5969).

In addition the Committee heard legislation that creates a College Bound Scholarship work group of legislators and higher education stakeholders to submit a report to the Governor and Legislature about recommendations for making the program viable, including recommendations for making the program viable, including but not limited to funding (SB 6436).

Evergreen signed-in to support both bills.