House budget completes funding for WSU medical school

Budget writers in the House of Representatives on Friday unveiled an operating budget proposal that fully funds the final installment of core funding to complete the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine.

WSU is requesting $3.6 million in the two-year budget cycle that begins July 1 to complete the 20-seat expansion first authorized in 2019. The request is now included in all three budget proposals authored by the House, Senate and governor. Once the House and Senate vote their versions off the floor, negotiators will meet to iron out a final budget to send to the governor.

The House budget also included $2.1 million to fund the Soil Heath Initiative, a research effort originally funded by the Legislature last year that was vetoed by the governor as part of a broad veto package to curb spending at the outset of the pandemic. It also was funded by the budgets produced by the governor and Senate.

Like the Senate budget, the House avoided furloughs or other funding reductions to higher education, reflecting a rebounding economy that has brought the state’s fiscal outlook back into balance.

Like the Senate, the House also approved upon the governor’s funding level for maintenance and operation of the new WSU Tri-Cities academic building, providing $656,000 of WSU’s $931,000 request.

You can view WSU’s testimony from Friday’s Senate operating budget hearing below: