Legislature and budget update

The Washington State Legislature is in its second 30-day special session and has yet to finalize a budget for the 2015-17 biennium.  As you may have heard from media reports, failure of the Legislature to pass a budget by the end of the fiscal year on June 30 could result in a shutdown of some operations in state government. Should that happen, there will be no shut down of operations at Western Washington University and no layoffs because the university relies, primarily, on revenue sources other than from state support. 

At its meeting last week, the WWU Board of Trustees approved a motion authorizing Western to continue operations with non-state funds should a state budget not be passed by the end of the current fiscal year.

The governor’s Office of Financial Management continues to expect an operating budget to be passed by June 30; however, they have started implementation of contingency planning in the event a budget is not approved before the end of the current fiscal year.

Western, like OFM, remains optimistic that a budget resolution will be achieved soon.   However, each day that passes creates more difficulty for our students and their families in planning for the upcoming academic year.  For example, final financial aid packages cannot be awarded to students until the Legislative budget is approved defining such things as funding for the State Need Grant and legislatively approved tuition levels.  Critical capital projects, such as Carver, cannot be started, and on-going state-funded construction, such as the Haggard Hall Media Lab, may be temporarily suspended until a capital budget has been passed. 

Campus budget meetings, our campus budget review and comment forums, and a special Board of Trustees meeting have been tentatively scheduled to allow rapid turnaround if the Legislature passes a budget by the end of June (see calendar here.)  If a Legislative budget is not approved by June 30, the planning calendar will again be revised and distributed to campus.