State senate releases capital budget draft

Rich Van Den Hul, vice president for Business and Financial Affairs at Western Washington University, sent the following update to WWU faculty and staff Wednesday afternoon:

Colleagues,

In the past few weeks President Shepard has kept us informed on budget developments in Olympia. The last of the budgets, the Senate Capital Budget, was released today. The news is good. The Senate, like the Governor and the House, included Carver in their capital budget. The even better news is that they increased the total amount of the project while reducing the amount of alternative financing. To do so they added considerably more state funds to the project. Unfortunately, but understandably, two of our important, but lower priority projects, included in the Governor and House budgets were not included in the Senate version. See the comparison table HERE.

The Senate also heard our questions on how to fund equipment, such as those included in our IT networking and campus wireless capital requests, but which were deemed ineligible for capital funding by OFM. The Senate budget includes language asking OFM to conduct a study of how best to fund these types of request, and to report back by the end of the year. Western supports this language, and will seek to be part of the study so it is clear on how to best advance these projects for funding.

Overall, we are highly supportive of the Senate budget. Carver has been and continues to be our top priority, and that is reflected in the Senate budget. Many thanks to all that have tirelessly advocated for Carver. Our message has been heard. And many thanks to the Senators for hearing our request, and recognizing the importance of the project and how it helps Western serve Washington. As usual, the budget will soon go into conference committee where the differences between the House and Senate budgets are negotiated. It is important we stay on message and continue to push our request through the conference committee process.

Best,

Rich Van Den Hul
Vice President, Business and Financial Affairs