Yesterday, I gave my last report as Faculty Legislative Representative to the UW Faculty Senate. I thanked the Senate, its leadership, Deputy FLR Jim Fridley, and the administration’s legislative and budget team for their support during the past year.
I began my presentation by presenting a few figures and tables to provide an overview of the budget issues faced by the Legislature and how they dealt with them.
- The basic arithmetic reality is that the projected revenues into the state’s General Fund for FY 2009-2011 (three years) are $9B less than the expenditures that were mandated to come out of the Fund; that represented 16-17% of the projected expenditures. In other words, the problem was to adjust the projected budget by 16% through cuts and one-time sources of funds.
- This was accomplished by cutting programs by $3.2B, applying $3.0B in largely one-time Federal resources, changing compensation policy to save $800M, using $800M in General Fund revenues that otherwise would have supported the Capital Budget, using $500M from the “rainy day fund” set aside last year, and $800M in other transfers and changes.
- That $3.2B in programmatic cuts represents about 6% of what the state would have otherwise spent from the General Fund over the 3 years (This is a very rough approximation on my part, subject to correction).
- Spending on higher education (community colleges, universities, and Evergreen State) from the state’s General Fund (including Federal funds) was cut by 17% from the previous biennium. In part, this reflects the fact that Higher Education, about 10% of the state’s operating budget, is not legally or constitutionally mandated the way that public schools (over 40% of the budget), some human services (36% of the budget), and debt service (about 6% of the budget) are mandated.
- The 2009-11 biennial state funding for universities (and Evergreen) was cut by 19% (WSU) to 24% (CWU); UW was cut by 23%. If each institution raises resident undergraduate tuition by the maximum amount allowed and raises other tuition levels by projected amounts, the net change is 7% for UW and WSU, and 6.5% for each of the other institutions. It’s moderately clear that this was the targeted level of net revenue reductions for these institutions, and the General Fund (and Federal stimulus) appropriations were set to create this evenness of percentage cuts across the institutions.
- Much of the underlying data can be found, in relatively readable form, in the Final 2009-11 Operating & Capital Budget: Overview.
I then suggested some elements of what I see as the reality going forward.
- We can’t do anything about the arithmetic reality of the past nor of the future: budgets grow incrementally and marginally; this was a 6-10-year cut.
- We do need to fight to keep the resources we generate: for example, the student building fee should not be considered a general part of the state’s capital budget.
- We can and must do more politically: more messaging as an institution, more grassroots work as individuals and in groups aligned for more and better education.
- Dedicated sources of general revenue may be more feasible than a general tax increase or a new general-fund tax stream.
The UW administration has begun talking about “a new compact” with the State of Washington.
- What are the likely elements? State “buying” degrees by approximate levels, fields, and quality indicators; State giving institutions the authority for enrollment, in return for support of other state initiatives (new colleges, performance agreements, …)
- Internal discussion of the University’s proposals need greater and systematic faculty involvement, as the people charged with quality. Appropriate measures are in place internally, but need to be carefully and skillfully used.
- We need to go to Olympia with a strong, unified voice and strategy. This requires more coordination among administration, faculty, and student legislative and policy strategies and week-to-week tactics – despite the potential for some differences in legislative and policy agendas.
The UW administration has begun planning for a new compact within the University: new budgeting models driven by enrollments, tuition flows, research and grants –
- What are the implications for faculty protections, workload, assessments, career paths?
- What are the implications for differential growth by disciplines and subdisciplines?
- This will likely result in increased autonomy for deans and chairs to select operational strategies – and that implies a need for greater and systematic faculty involvement at the school/college/campus and department levels.
