Today starts the final week of this year’s 105 day regular session, though a special session is anticipated in order to finish the considerable work still before the Legislature.
While the House and Senate will be ironing out differences in various policy bills they’ve already approved, lots of attention will still be focused on the budget and all the bills necessary to implement it.
On Friday, the Senate Ways and Means Committee advanced the upper chamber’s budget proposal to the floor after agreeing to a raft of mostly non-controversial amendments. None of them had any great bearing on higher education.
A floor vote is expected sometime today. Both the House and Senate convene at 10. To view the potential impacts on WSU, you can find a side-by-side comparison of the three budget proposal on the table here.
As negotiators begin their work of reaching agreement on a budget to send to the governor, WSU will be pressing for changes that would provide the university more flexibility to administer budget cuts.