Legislature Reaches Opposite Chamber Cutoff Date

April 13, 2017

The Legislature reached the opposite chamber cutoff yesterday evening, marking the final date on the 2017 cutoff calendar before the 105-day regular session is scheduled to conclude on April 23. With more than 2,100 bills introduced this session, legislative cutoffs help winnow down the number of legislative proposals, and the vast majority of bills do not complete the process and become law. In order to have cleared yesterday’s cutoff, bills that are not necessary to implement the budget needed to have successfully been voted out of the opposite chamber (Senate bills passed out of the House and House bills passed out of the Senate), and this cutoff followed legislative cutoffs earlier in the session.

Legislation that has specific impacts to Western that are currently still viable in the legislative process or outlined in operating budget proposals include:

  • HB 1561 – Subject to appropriation of funds, this bill creates a grant pilot program for open educational resources (OERs) for public four-year higher education institutions administered by the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC), requires WSAC to determine the feasibility of a multistate OER network, and directs the Washington State Institute for Public Policy to study the costs of textbooks and use of OERs throughout the state. Funding for this bill is included in the House of Representatives budget proposal.
  • HB 1827 – Addresses the state’s teacher shortage by expanding the current and future educator workforce supply through evidence-based strategies to improve and incentivize the recruitment and retention of highly effective educators. Funding for this bill is included in the House of Representatives budget proposal.
  • HB 2009 – Benefits Gold Star families by providing a $500 annual textbook stipend to children and spouses receiving a tuition waiver because their parent or spouse passed away, became totally disabled, or is considered a prisoner of war or missing in action due to active military service. Funding for this bill is included in the House of Representatives budget proposal.
  • HB 2037 – Extends until August 2018 the Disabilities Services Transfer Workgroup, which was established through SB 6466 during the 2016 legislative session. The Workgroup, convened by the Council of Presidents and including representation from WWU, delivered a report to the Legislature in December 2016. Under HB 2037, the Workgroup will continue developing a plan that focuses on removing obstacles for higher education students with disabilities and will provide a plan to the Legislature by December 31, 2017.
  • SB 5100 – Subject to appropriation of funds, this bill requires institutions of higher education to take reasonable steps to ensure that incoming students participate in a financial education workshop and that the workshop include recommendations by the Financial Education Public-Private Partnership.
  • SB 5234 – Requires higher education institutions to create a coordinated, evidence-based policy for granting undergraduate credit for Advanced Placement (AP) exams, to post the policy on campus websites, and to conduct a biennial review of the policy and report to the Legislature.
  • SB 5525 – Subject to appropriation of funds, this bill requires each public four-year institution of higher education to employ at least one full-time licensed mental health counselor with experience working with active military members or military veterans to work with student, faculty, and staff veterans and their families. Funding for this bill is included in the Senate budget proposal.
  • SB 5712 – Establishes the Bilingual Educator Initiative as a long-term program to recruit, prepare and mentor bilingual high school students to become future bilingual teachers and counselors, creates initiative pilot projects at four school districts across the state, and allows students that meet certain requirements to qualify for conditional loans to cover the full cost of college tuition, fees, and books if they teach or serve as a counselor in their educational service district region for at least five years. Funding for this bill is included in the Senate budget proposal.
  • SB 5764 – The Legislature established the Campus Sexual Violence Taskforce with SB 5719 during the 2015 session. SB 5764 addresses a Taskforce recommendation to ensure that survivor communications with, and records maintained by, campus-affiliated advocates are confidential and exempt from the Public Records Act, except under certain circumstances.
  • SB 5902 – Subject to appropriation of funds, this is a measure to increase undergraduate student enrollment at public institutions of higher education and requires that 70 percent of funding for the increased enrollment to be for students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) degree programs. Funding for this bill was included in the Senate budget proposal, including for an additional 100 students in the 2017-18 academic year and 200 students in the 2018-19 academic year at Western, with 70 percent being STEM majors.

The Western Legislative Review will provide updates from Olympia throughout the remainder of session, including updates regarding budget proposals and the status of bills. You can subscribe to the blog on the right side of this page and you can follow us on Twitter here.