Washington State University this month submitted operating and capital budget proposals to the state’s Office of Financial Management that reflect the onset of a recession.
The submission is highlighted by an operating budget decision package modeling the impact of a 15 percent reduction in overall appropriation required of all agencies.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state is wrestling with the associated economic fallout. Last week, the state’s Economic and Revenue Forecast Council produced a new report that set the state’s projected budget shortfall through June 2023 at nearly $4.5 billion. That estimate will be revised again in November and again next year before the Legislature writes a new two-year budget in the spring.
A 15 percent reduction would equate to roughly $37 million annually. To provide a sense of scale, that is equivalent to each of the following scenarios.
- The colleges of nursing and medicine combined
- The colleges of business, communication and education combined
- The college of pharmacy, the graduate school and the entire student services budget at the Pullman campus
The decision package further notes that the university’s appropriation only last year reached levels last seen in 2008 and that many reductions from the Great Recession have not been reversed. It reports that this comes at a time when the university is witnessing fiscal trauma to auxiliary enterprises and makes the case for higher education’s importance to economic recovery by recession-proofing careers.
“As much as anything, economic recessions make the case for higher education’s value proposition,” the decision package reads.
The operating budget request includes two additional decision packages seeking new funding. One is a $3.6 million request for the 21-23 biennium to fund the third and fourth years of the 20-seat medical school expansion authorized in 2019 and a $931,000 request to fund maintenance and operation of the new academic building at WSU Tri-Cities.
The capital budget request reflects the recessionary times, too, with a package of requests that would support construction jobs to bolster the economy. The requests signal a shift in favor of efforts to better care for existing university facilities and reduce deferred maintenance backlogs. The request is as follows.
- Minor Capital Preservation — $35 million
- Minor Capital Program — $10 million
- Johnson Hall Demolition — $8 million
- Campus Fire Protection and Domestic Water Reservoir — $8 million
- WSU Vancouver Life Sciences Building Construction — $52.6 million
- WSU Spokane Phase One Building Renovation — $15 million
- WSU Pullman Sciences Building predesign — $500,000
- WSU Pullman STEM Teaching and Replacement Building predesign — $500,000
- WSU Pullman STEM Teaching Labs — $4.9 million
- Clark Hall Research Lab Renovation — $4.9 million