At midnight last night the Washington Legislature ended the 2012 supplemental legislative session. The session ended without the passage of an operating or a capital budget or several policy bills that would be necessary to implement any of the budgets proposed this session.
As a result, soon after the supplemental session was called Governor Gregoire announced the beginning of a special session. The Legislature will return to Olympia on Monday at noon to work on a budget compromise.
Early this evening the Washington House took action on the Senate-passed operating budget.
In a vote of 53-45 the House passed a striking amendment to the budget. The striker replaces the Senate Republican language adopted late last week when Republicans took control of the budget on the Senate floor.
This new budget looks much the same as the Senate Democratic budget introduced early last week in that there are no additional cuts to higher education. However, there is language in the bill that requires Evergreen to use $639,000 of its own appropriations solely for the expansion in enrollments in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). There are no cuts to financial aid.
The House-passed bill now moves back to the Senate for further consideration.
This week represents the ninth week of the 2012 supplemental session and the final week.
March 8 marks the end of the supplemental session and sine die. The focus for both the House and Senate is primarily on floor action in an effort to move bills to the Governor’s desk prior to the end of the session.
This week would normally be focused on passing a supplemental budget and any policy bills necessary to implement the budget. However given the events of Friday evening it is unclear if the Legislature will be able to find agreement on the budget prior to the March 8 deadline.
As both chambers continue to meet to discuss a potential budget agreement, committees – both policy and fiscal committees – are holding some hearings to focus on interim planning which are posted on the Legislature’s website.
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.
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:
The House’s proposed 2012 Supplemental Operating Budget will now move to the House Floor for consideration.
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.
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.
As the week progresses members of both chambers have moved their work to their respective floors. The Senate and House have until February 14 to move bills to the opposite chamber. As a result, both floors are full of activity as legislators move bills forward in the process.
While the Legislature changed focus from committee to the floor, higher education introduced some new faces to policymakers this week to advocate for higher education.
Earlier this week trustees and regents from the public two- and four-year sectors traveled to Olympia to meet with legislators.
The trustees and regents met with several senators and representatives throughout much of the day to advocate on behalf of higher education in Washington. In addition the dialogue with legislators provided insight into the context and next steps around both policy and budgets.
This week the Senate and the House turned their full attention to the fiscal committees. All bills with a fiscal impact must have passed out of their respective fiscal committee by February 7.
Over the last two days the Senate and House Ways & Means Committees have held marathon sessions to move bills forward in the process. The primary exemption from this being any legislation that is deemed “NTIB” or “Necessary to Implement the Budget”.
Both committees have held public hearings and executive sessions on key bills that will impact higher education. Among the pieces of legislation that the Ways & Means Committees took action on include legislation to provide greater flexibility for institutions of higher education in areas such as procurement and travel and to establish a new state entity focused on higher education.
After February 7 the House and Senate will have until February 14 to bills from their respective floor to the opposite chamber.
This morning the House Education Appropriations & Oversight Committee held the last public hearing and work session before the House deadline tomorrow – February 3.
Among the bills heard this morning was legislation to encourage the public baccalaureate institutions to design innovative approaches to increase the number of resident students gaining baccalaureate degrees and a bill to require institutions of higher education that already offer early registration to a certain population of students, to offer early registration to students who are eligible veterans or National Guard members.
The Committee followed the public hearing with a work session in which the Committee took action on several bills. Among the bills that will impact higher education is legislation focused on innovation at higher education, early registration for veterans at institutions for higher education, and flexibility with regard to regulations for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions and community and technical colleges.