On April 5, the Senate approved its proposed 2013-15 operating budget, Substitute Senate Bill 5034, with a floor vote of 30-18. One week later on April 12, the House proposed operating budget, Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5034, passed the floor with a vote of 54-43.
House and Senate budget writers must now work together to agree on and write a compromise operating budget, which will be sent to the governor’s desk for signature.
Also last week, the House and Senate released their proposed capital budgets, House Bill 1089 and Senate Bill 5035. The House Capital Budget Committee and the Senate Ways and Means Committee held meetings to hear public testimony on the proposed budgets, and then passed them out of committee where they now await a final floor vote in their respective chambers before budget writers begin work to write the capital compromise budget.
The WSU budget office has outlined the major actions and recommendations that affect WSU in each of the four proposed budgets. You can find their outline of the Senate proposals here and their outline of the House proposals here.
You can view WSU’s public testimony on the House proposed operating and capital budgets, as well as the Senate’s proposed capital budget below. To view WSU’s testimony on the Senate proposed operating budget, check out our previous coverage here.