This afternoon the Senate Higher Education Committee advanced several gubernatorial appointments to the boards of institutions of higher education. Among the trustees and regents that were advanced to the Senate floor was Fred Goldberg and David Nicandri.
The Senate will confirm their appointment some time in April.
This week the House and Senate will continue to advance policy legislation forward in the process. Both chambers have until a week from Wednesday to move bills from the opposite chamber to either the floor or a fiscal committee.
At the same time everyone is awaiting the release of the House operating and capital budgets. This year the House will introduce their proposed biennial budgets first followed by the Senate. Rumor suggests that a release may come early next week.
House Higher Education
The House Higher Education Committee will hold a series of public hearings this week. Among the bills the committee will take testimony include legislation with regard to sexual assault prevention on campuses (SB 5518 and 5719), adding the branch campuses to the Office of Financial Management’s Education Research and Data Center’s dashboard for public, baccalaureate institutions (SB 5295), and the type of financial aid information shared with prospective and admitted students to higher education institutions (SB 5328)
The Committee is expected to hold an executive session on bills heard to date on Thursday.
Senate Higher Education
The Senate Higher Education Committee will hold several public hearings early this week. Among the bills scheduled include legislation to establish a task force on mental health and suicide prevention in higher education (HB 1138) and the creation of a pilot project for performance-based grants within the State Need Grant (HB 2041).
This week committees transitioned from work sessions to public hearings, even advancing some bills to the next step in the legislative process.
The Senate Higher Education Committee spent the week listening to testimony on a range of bills and moving forward trustee appointments. The Committee held public hearings on bills focusing on tuition policy, student veterans, and sexual assault prevention. Evergreen weighed in supporting bills to align state policy impacting student veterans with federal policy, provide support for sexual assault prevention, and eliminate tuition-setting authority for public baccalaureate institutions.
The Senate Higher Education also took action and advanced Nick Wootan, Student Trustee for The Evergreen State College to the full Senate for confirmation.
The House Higher Education Committee also spent the week taking public testimony on a range of bills. Legislation before the committee focused on student veterans, transparency and accountability, performance funding and tuition policy. Evergreen echoed testimony the College provided in the Senate to support legislation that would align state policy with federal policy for student veterans and eliminate tuition-setting authority for public baccalaureate institutions.
Evergreen also testified on a variety of bills that focused on transparency and accountability. The College asked the committee to not duplicate current reporting efforts and to clarify responsibilities within the legislation. Among the bills was legislation to create a performance incentive funding policy for the comprehensive institutions and Evergreen.
Finally, Evergreen testified in support of the Governor’s biennial capital budget before the Senate Ways & Means Committee. Evergreen asked the Committee to support funding for Evergreen’s capital priorities and to provide funding to maintain and preserve existing facilities.
Next week both the House and Senate Higher Education Committees will continue to hold public hearings. Bills will focus on financial aid policy and higher education funding.
Yesterday the House and Senate were busy as sine die looms in two weeks.
Senate
In the late afternoon the Senate passed a proposed operating budget off the floor with a vote of 41-8.
Following the vote on the floor, the Senate Higher Education Committee convened for the last time this session. The Committee advanced several gubernatorial appointments to the Senate for confirmation. Held a public hearing on a handful of bills and moved several more bills forward for further consideration.
Among the bills heard by the Committee was legislation requiring higher education institutions to adopt a policy to award academic credit to individuals for certain military training courses and programs as well as share this information with students (HB 1858). Evergreen signed-in to support the bill.
The Committee took action on several additional bills which now advance in the process. Among those bills passed by the Committee:
House
The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education advanced several bills forward in the process. Among those bills passed by the Committee:
This weeks marks another major deadline in the legislative process as the Legislature marches forward toward the end of session in mid-March. House policy committees must advance Senate bills forward in the process by the end of Wednesday, February 26; the deadline in the Senate for House bills is Friday.
House Higher Education Committee
This morning the House Higher Education Committee held a series of public hearings on Senate bills that passed the floor last week.
Among the bills considered this morning was legislation that would change business practices resulting in greater efficiency and effectiveness for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions (SB 6362) and ensure that colleges and universities clearly disseminate their financial policies to students (SB 6358). The Committee also took executive action on bills heard in committee.
The Committee rounded out the meeting with a work session focused on higher education transitions. The Committee heard updates with regard to two programs that focus on easing the transition to higher education: (1) the College Bound Scholarship and (2) MESA Community College Program.
The Committee will meet next on Wednesday afternoon. This will be the last meeting prior to the policy cut-off for bills passed in the Senate to be considered in the House.
Senate Higher Education Committee
This afternoon the Senate Higher Education Committee continued its work to advance gubernatorial appointments to higher education related boards. The Committee heard from nominations who would serve on the boards of Spokane and Spokane Falls Community College, Shoreline Community College, and the Washington Student Achievement Council.
Following the conversation with future Trustees the Committee held a series of public hearings on house bills. The Committee heard proposed legislation that would create an informational program to increase applications from high-achieving low-income students to selective institutions of higher education (HB 2694) and clean up outdated statutes pertaining to general obligation bonds that were issued for higher education capital projects and that have matured and provides expiration dates and clarifications for certain higher education provisions and programs (HB 2546).
The Committee also held a public hearing on House Bill 2613 which changes to business practices resulting in greater efficiency and effectiveness for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions.
The Committee closed with an executive session. The Committee advanced several pieces of legislation and moved multiple gubernatorial appointments forward. The legislation advanced included amended legislation to require higher education institutions to post department-level, budget unit-level, division-level, school-level, or college-level expenditure information on their respective web site within sixty days of the closing fiscal year (HB 2336) and an amended bill to direct OFM to create a website with accessible information on revenues and expenditures and require all branch campuses to display specific data on the office of financial management’s dashboard for four-year institutions of higher education by December 1, 2014 (HB 2651).
The Committee will meet next on Thursday afternoon. This is the last meeting of the Committee before the Friday cut-off.
This week the Senate Higher Education Committee held a series of public hearings on legislation passed by the House. The bills ranged from changing the membership and provisions for the Opportunity Scholarship and its board (HB 1251 & HB 2612) to requiring a review of higher education dual credit coursework policies (HB 2285).
The Committee also heard about legislation (HB 2651) that would require the Washington Education Research and Data Center (ERDC) to include information on revenues and expenditures for each institution of higher education on the public, baccalaureate dashboard.
In addition the Committee heard House Bill 2336 which would require higher education institutions to post via the ERDC department-level budgets within sixty days of an institutions adoption of an annual fiscal budget. Evergreen expressed concerns regarding a proposed substitute to the bill regarding the lack of clarity about the definition of department, unit and division. The public baccalaureate institutions currently provide budget information at the major activity level on the institutional websites in accordance with legislation passed in 2011. Evergreen also posts similar information with regard to our allotments and reporting to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). The College also posts board approved budget policy that recognizes transparency on budgetary changes on the College’s website.
This afternoon the Senate Higher Education Committee met and took action on several bills. This marks the last committee session prior to the policy cut-off on Friday in the Senate.
The Committee advanced a number of gubernatorial appointments to public, higher education four- and two-year institutions.
In addition the Committee focused considerable amount of time on advancing legislation either to Senate Ways & Means or the Senate floor for further consideration. Among the legislation advanced included requiring the display of branch campus information on the statewide public four-year dashboard (SB 6482) and creating a work group to make recommendations for the continued viability of the college bound scholarship program (SB 6436).
The Committee amended and advanced legislation that would create an eight-member legislative task force to provide recommendations to the Governor and Legislature on establishing a cap for undergraduate resident tuition by December 1, 2014. (SB 6043). The original bill would have established a cap on undergraduate, resident tuition not to exceed 10% of the most current average annual wage reported by the Washington Employment Security Department (ESD). The average annual wage reported by ESD in 2012 was $51,595.
In addition the Committee advanced legislation to implement greater efficiencies for the public, baccalaureate institutions (SB 6362). The legislation would make changes to business practices resulting in greater efficiency and effectiveness for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions. Among the changes proposed is permissive authority to prorate paychecks for faculty on nine-month appointments, to change payroll frequency from semi-monthly to biweekly and changes to existing reporting requirements.
The focus will now turn to the appropriation committees through early next week followed by several days of floor session.
On Tuesday afternoon the Senate Higher Education Committee took action on several gubernatorial appointments to various higher education related boards.
Among those appointments advanced by the Committee was the appointments of Fred Goldberg and Keith Kessler trustees to The Evergreen State College Board of Trustees.
Fred Goldberg is a philanthropist, Army veteran, banker and entrepreneur. He helped found Saltchuk Resources, a global logistics company, currently the largest private company in Washington State. Recently retired from active management of the company, Fred continues to serve on the Saltchuk board. As a banker, Fred saw the evolution of the Thurston County State Bank into Puget Sound National Bank and then into Key Bank, serving in various leadership roles throughout the decades. He currently serves on the board of Columbia Bank.
Fred has deep roots in Olympia, where he operated his family’s third-generation furniture business, volunteered at the Washington State Capital Museum and helped the Panorama City retirement community regain financial stability in the 1990s.
Keith Kessler is a plaintiff’s personal injury attorney with the Hoquiam and Seattle Law Firm of Stritmatter Kessler Whelan Coluccio, representing brain- and spinal cord-injury survivors. He focuses his practice largely on highway and product safety. His recent articles have addressed the need for open government.
Keith is a Fellow with the American College of Trial Lawyers, having been selected from among the top 1% of trial attorneys in the United States and Canada. He has served as President of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association, President of the invitation-only Damage Attorneys Round Table, and President of the American Board of Trial Advocates, Washington Chapter. He is a member of the Washington Supreme Court’s Pattern Jury Instructions Committee.
Both appointments now await confirmation by the Senate.
The Senate Higher Education Committee convened this rainy afternoon on The Hill. The Committee opened with a public hearing on two conferees to the boards of higher education institutions. Chair Bailey welcomed Fred Goldberg a member of The Evergreen State College Board of Trustees and Claire Grace a member of the Higher Education Facilities Authority. Goldberg and Grace were asked to share with the committee their background and bios and to express why they are interested in serving on the Board they were appointed. In addition, both were asked to respond to their goals and hopes as Board members.
Following the public hearing with gubernatorial appointments, the Committee conducted a work session to gain a better understanding of the cost of attendance and financial aid options at a research university, regional university, community college, and private university as well a student loans. The Committee heard from a variety of institutions with regard to their student demographics, their mission, and their financial aid policies. The University of Washington and Eastern Washington University presented from the public baccalaureate sector.
The Committee closed the meeting with a public hearing on legislation that would require institutions of higher education to provide certain financial aid information to admitted and prospective students (SB 6358). All of the public baccalaureate institutions and the majority of community and technical colleges already provide students with this information. The State Board for Community and Technical Colleges and the Washington Student Achievement Council testified in support.
Today marked the first full day of public hearings in both the Senate and House Higher Education Committees. With the first deadline of the session nearing next week, both committees focused on public hearings and executive sessions to move bills through to the next step.
The deadline for policy bills in the House is next Wednesday followed by a deadline on Friday for the Senate.
This morning the House Higher Education Committee held several public hearings. The bills ranged from legislation focused on the promotion of mentoring and service learning (HB 2400) to changing provisions with regards to the opportunity scholarship (HB 2612)
Evergreen testified with concerns on legislation that would direct the Education Research and Data Center to publish employment and earnings data on its website for higher education program completers (HB 2443). Evergreen shared support for conversations that recognized the role of higher education in post-graduate success of students, but questioned the use of employment and wage data as the best metrics by which to measure institutional success. Many factors influence a graduate’s earning and employment that are beyond the control of the institution. Instead Evergreen proposed that degree attainment be the focus because there is a primary responsible by institutions to move students through to degree and connect students while they are attending a college/university to internship, mentoring, and advising opportunities to make the link between their academic studies and future employment.
The University of Washington also expressed concerns with regard to data definitions and proposed including data that extended beyond five years post-graduation as suggested in the bill. Evergreen concurred with these concerns. The State Board of Community Colleges also testified with concerns.
Evergreen also signed in as a member of the Council of Presidents in support of legislation that would address the implementation of inmate postsecondary education degree programs to reduce recidivism (HB 2486).
In the afternoon the Senate Higher Education Committee held a public hearing on the public baccalaureate’s efficiency legislation (SB 6362). This bill would make changes to business practices resulting in greater efficiency and effectiveness for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions. Among the changes proposed is permissive authority to prorate paychecks for faculty on nine-month appointments, to change payroll frequency from semi-monthly to biweekly and changes to existing reporting requirements.
Evergreen signed-in support of this legislation.
The Committee also held an executive session in which several gubernatorial appointments were moved from committee to the full Senate for confirmation. However the Committee did take action on legislation to establish an incentive funding framework for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions (SB 6042). The Council of Presidents testified on this bill earlier in the session citing support for performance funding and general support for the bill with the caveat that additional conversations with the institution was necessary to identify further details with regard to distribution of funds and metrics.
Both Committee are expected to continue their work on legislation the rest of this week.