House and Senate Release Operating Budget Proposals
The State Senate and House of Representatives each released operating budget proposals in recent weeks. The Senate budget proposal includes funding to increase STEM enrollments at Western, while the House proposal would include new funding for student support services at Western such as advising, tutoring and counseling. The House and Senate budget proposals follow the release of Governor Inslee’s budget proposal in December.
The Senate proposal released on March 21 would maintain current tuition policy, permitting a 2.1% increase in resident undergraduate tuition for academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19. The proposed budget also provides salary increases of $1,000 over the biennium for each state employee in lieu of fully funding labor contracts negotiated by state employees’ unions and the Office of Financial Management and would reduce Western’s tuition waiver authority by $1.3 million.
The House operating budget proposal released on March 27 includes a two-year tuition freeze for resident undergraduate students and provides backfill funding to higher education institutions for foregone tuition revenue. The proposal also increases funding for the State Need Grant by $49 million, which would ensure an additional 6,000 eligible students receive the grant. There was a technical error related to compensation for Western employees, but it appears the intent of the House proposal was to include the same level of funding as the Governor’s budget for a 2%/2%/2% increase for all state employees over the 2017-19 biennium. Additionally, the House budget would create a competitive grant program for faculty to develop and utilize open education resources (OERs) to reduce the cost of textbooks, and includes incentive funding for additional tenure-track faculty at Western and the other regional public four-year institutions.
Stay tuned to the blog for updates from Olympia as the legislative session progresses, including updates regarding capital budget proposals. For additional updates, you can follow WWU Government Relations on Twitter.