House Higher Education Hears Key Policy Bill

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The House Higher Education Committee held a public hearing today on a key policy bill – House Bill 1795 sponsored by Rep. Carlyle- that would impact how higher education is funded, financial aid, and accountability for higher education institutions.

The bill as drafted – both the sponsor and the higher education community continue to work on the bill – would authorize public baccalaureate institutions to set tuition rates for all students for academic years 2011 through 2014 and direct public baccalaureate institutions to retain half of all tuition raised above 7 percent to support financial aid that mitigates tuition increases for middle class students with incomes up to 125 percent of the median family income.

In addition, the bill retains tuition setting authority for community and technical colleges with the state Legislature though individual colleges may raise tuition up to the state cap if the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges does not raise up to the cap for the whole state.

The bill would also require a study to recommend a possible phase two of Washington’s GET program and establish data reporting requirements for public baccalaureate institutions in statute and repeals performance agreements.  

 

  The  Committee heard testimony from several members of the higher education community, including institutions, students, faculty, the Higher Education Coordinating Board, and the Council of Presidents.  The testimony was clearly in favor of the bill with the only concern being the lack of knowledge at this time with regard to state funding levels for higher education. The testimony strongly supported the move to a single accountability system – Compete to Complete, additional tuition flexibility at the local level, and acknowledgement to work to mitigate the impacts on students.

Further action is expected on the bill next week.

The Committee also held a public hearing on substitute legislation to House Bill 1654. House Bill 1654 requires four-year public institutions of higher education and community and technical colleges that offer applied baccalaureate degrees to charge those resident students who exceed 125 percent of credits needed to obtain their degree at a nonresident or graduate tuition rate for credits that exceed 125 percent.

The proposed substitute language grandfathers current students in under current policy, removes the reporting requirement, and adds some specific waiver language  in addition to broader waiver language for institutions.

The Council of Presidents testified that the bill provided the latitude necessary to implement the intent of the legislation. The Washington Student Association testified in opposition to the bill.

The bill is scheduled for further action next week.

Finally the Committee took further action on a handful of bills, including:

  •  HB 1394 – Enacting the college efficiency and savings act.
  • HB 1477 – Authorizing the board of trustees at Eastern Washington University to offer educational specialist degrees.
  • HB 1568 – Regarding appointing members to the boards of trustees for community colleges and the state board for community and technical colleges.
  • HB 1586 – Regarding the provision of doctorate programs at the research university branch campuses in Washington.
  • HB 1650 – Changing state need grant eligibility provisions.

Higher Education Related Issues in Other Committees

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This morning the House Technology, Energy & Communications Committee and the House Labor & Workforce Development Committee  held public hearings on two bills that may impact higher education institutions in Washington.

The House Technology, Energy & Communications Committee considered legislation that would propose changes to the current organization of information technology in Washington

House Bill 1841 would create the Office of the Chief Information Officer (Office of the CIO) within the Office of Financial Management and create an Information Technology (IT) Advisory Board to advise the Office of the CIO on IT issues.

In addition the bill would eliminate the Information Services Board, replace the Department of Information Services with the newly created Consolidated Technology Services Agency (CTS Agency), and create a Consolidated Technology Services Agency Board that, among other things, approves the catalog of services offered by the CTS Agency and the rates for such services.

The House Labor & Workforce Development Committee heard legislation that would propose changes to current arbitration practices for campus police officers at institutions of higher education.

House Bill 1736 would provide binding interest arbitration for uniformed personnel under the Personnel System Reform Act and define uniformed personnel as campus police officers at institutions of highereducation.

The University of Washington testified with concerns on behalf of all of the four-year, public baccalaureate institutions.

 

Senate Higher Education Committee Holds Public Hearing

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This morning the Senate Higher Education & Workforce Committee heard several proposed bills, ranging from regulatory relief to three-year degrees.

The following bills were heard:

  • SB 5268 – Enacting the college efficiency and savings act.
  • SB 5442 – Requiring the development of accelerated baccalaureate programs at state colleges and universities.
  • SB 5483 – Regarding administrative consistency in student financial aid programs.
  • SB 5484 – Concerning the higher education coordinating board’s responsibilities with regard to health sciences and services authorities.
  • SB 5443 – Requiring the higher education coordinating board to develop a grant program to encourage training for students studying in the medical field to work with individuals with developmental disabilities

The Council of Presidents testified on behalf of the four-year, public institutions in support of the value of providing pathways for students who wish to accelerate their degree attainment as proposed in SB 5442 and shared what institutions are currently doing to serve theses student . However, concerns were expressed about the requirement in the bill to create a three-year degree without attending summer classes or enrolling in more than a full-time class load during the regular academic year.

Education Appropriations Committee Holds Work Session on Four-Year Institutions

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This morning the House Education Appropriations & Oversight Committee held a work session on Washington’s four-year, public baccalaureate institutions.

The focus of the work session centered on the four-year sector through a funding lens. Mike Reilly, Executive Director for the Council of Presidents, engaged the Committee in an overview of the public baccalaureate institutions regarding the recent history of higher education funding in Washington and the impact of the Governor’s proposed 2011-13 biennial budget.  In addition, Reilly highlighted the high productivity of the sector and concerns with regard to participation.

Representatives of each of the four-year, public baccalaureate institutions were in attendance for questions and answers, including The Evergreen State College.

Note: All committee presentations can be found on the House Education Appropriation and Oversight Committee’s website by clicking on Committee Meeting Documents, select the date and work session, and then select the presentation.

House Ways & Means Hears Higher Education Pension Related Legislation

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This afternoon the House Ways & Means Committee heard two pieces of legislation that would propose changes to the current pension policies for higher education institutions.

House Bill 1083 eliminates Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) and Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) Plan 1 provisions permitting retirees to receive benefits while employed in retirement system-covered positions for up to 1,500 hours per year. In addition, the bill would add positions covered by the Higher Education Retirement Plan to those included in the postretirement employment pension restrictions for PERS, TRS, the School Employees’ Retirement System, and the Public Safety Employees’ Retirement System.

House Bill 1262 limits the employees to which state institutions of higher education may offer the Higher Education Retirement Plan (HERP), instead of the Public Employees’ Retirement System(PERS) Plans 2 or 3, to faculty and senior academic administrator employees.

In addition, the bill eliminates the HERP Supplemental Benefit to employees that enter the plan after the effective date of the act; replaces the defunct Public Pension Commission with the Select Committee on Pension Policy on the committees responsible for overseeing the HERPs; creates a presumption that retirees that return to work for their previous employers fewer than three months after his or her accrual date did not separate from service; and applies the PERS post-retirement employment rules to positions covered by the HERPs.

Representatives from the University of Washington, Washington State University, and community and technical colleges testified in support of the bills with concerns.

House Higher Education Moves More Bills

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This afternoon the House Higher Education Committee moved some legislation forward for further consideration.

The Committee took action on three bills:

House Bill 1522 would require collaboration among higher education institutions and state agencies to increase the number of students who receive credit for prior learning and increase the types of credits awarded for prior learning.

The bill was amended in three ways: (1) Adds a focus on quality of prior learning assessments in addition to increasing quantity of credits awarded under the goals for the Work Group; (2) Emphasizing improvement and not consistency for one of the work group goals to avoid any potential for standardization of practices that do not fit with an institution’s mission; and (3) Requiring the HECB to staff the prior learning work group instead of the State Board of Community and Technical Colleges.

The bill passed out of committee.

House Bill 1089  prohibits an institution that provides a specialized format version of instructional material to a student with a print access disability from requiring the return of the material.

The bill was amended to allow institutions to require the return of the specialized format materials that were transcribed or translated at the expense of the institution where the cost of making a reproduction of the translation or transcription is more than 100 dollars.

The bill was passed out of committee.

House Bill 1425 removes responsibility from the Higher Education Coordinating Board for: (1) developing evaluation and performance measures in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the programs in a Health Sciences and Services Authority; and (2) reporting to the Legislature on a biennial basis.

The bill passed out of committee.

The Committee also held a public hearing on HB 1586 and HB 1650.  The Evergreen State College signed-in to support HB 1650.

House Bill 1650 allows part-time students who are accepted for enrollment for at least three credits to be eligible for the State Need Grant, by removing the pilot status of the program and the expiration date and restores child support payments in computations of financial need for part-time students applying for the State Need Grant.

Finally, the Committee held a work session on the Governor’s proposed budget and tuition setting and the Community and Technical Colleges’ Student Achievement Initiative.

The House Higher Education Committee will meet again on Wednesday at 8:00 a.m.

2011 Legislative Session: Week 5

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The next week will be filled with public hearings and then executive sessions as legislators turn their attention to acting on bills by a February 18th self-imposed deadline.

Next week’s schedule includes conversations on the link between performance and funding; postretirement issues (HB 1083 & HB 1262); a work session on four-year institutions; and several efficiency and regulatory relief bills (SB 5268, SB 5516).  Please see the links below for a list of all the hearings that might be of interest.

Senate Passes Supplemental Budget

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This morning the Washington Senate passed (38-9) a striking amendment to the supplemental budget bill (ESHB 1086), the House version of the operating supplemental budget.

The supplemental budget brought to the Senate floor this morning was amended and passed out of the Senate Ways & Means Committee on Thursday.  The Committee adopted a handful of amendments during the executive session, including language to add back funds each four-year, public baccalaureate institution pays as members of the Council of presidents that were reduced in the original bill.

The Senate’s supplemental budget still reduces higher education by $25.4 million through a tuition transfer from the institutions -public 2-year and 4-year – to the Higher Education Coordinating Board for financial aid.

In addition,  funding reductions were retained to the Higher Education Coordinating Board ($909,000), Workforce Employment and Training (ESD) ($318,000), and the following HECB programs and services ($632,000): (1) College Readiness Program, (2) Health Sciences and Services Authority (HSSA), (3) student financial aid administration, and (4) the Technology Transformation Task Force. 

The next step is to convene a conference committee comprised of three senators ( two Democrats and one Republican) and three representatives (two Democrats and one Republican) to iron out the differences between the two budgets. Once there is agreement, the bill will be voted on by both chambers with no opportunity for amendments, and then sent to the Governor for her signature.

House Higher Education Committee Hears Legislation

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This morning the House Higher Education Committee heard several proposed bills, ranging from purchasing to membership on community and technical college boards.

The following bills were heard:

  • HB 1568 – Regarding appointing members to the boards of trustees for community colleges and the state board for community and technical colleges.
  • HB 1477 – Authorizing the board of trustees at Eastern Washington University to offer educational specialist degrees.
  • HB 1663 – Removing the requirement that institutions of higher education purchase from correctional industries.
  • HB 1631 – Providing for academic employee salary increments for community and technical colleges.
  • HB 1451 – Eliminating the goal of global challenge state funding levels.

The Evergreen State College signed in support for HB 1477 and HB 1663 and did not take a position on the community college related legislation.

Evergreen also submitted written testimony to the Committee in support of House Bill 1451. As stated in our testimony, Evergreen supports the elimination of the Global Challenge State (GCS) framework.  We believe the elimination of this framework will simplify and clarify accountability metrics for Washington’s four-year, public baccalaureate institutions and allow the state to refocus on maintaining access to college for Washington residents.

The GCS framework was established in 2002 as part of the New Economy Index (NEI). The framework lasted for only two-years. Currently, the New Economy Index no longer exists and the states identified in 2002 have not been updated since 2004.

College Promise Coalition Elevates Higher Education at The Capitol

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This morning the College Promise Coalition, a coalition that advocates for the colleges and universities, alongside students, parents, faculty, alumni, labor and business leaders, and education advocates in order to urge the legislature to make higher education a top priority, held a media event at The Capitol.

Students from two- and four-year institutions opened the event announcing the Coalition, its importance and the broad support within the Coalition for higher education in Washington.  In addition, the students shared how their lives have been impacted as funding for institutions has declined.

Following the student President Les Purce – The Evergreen State College,  President Elson Floyd – WSU, President Roy Heyndrickx – St Martin’s, Ana Mari Cauce – UW Dean of Arts and Sciences, the College Success Foundation, and faculty and union representatives shared what is at stake for the state regarding reductions to higher education investments over the last few years, spoke to the value of the student experience, and recognized the need for investments in access.