Legislative leaders adjourned the state’s 2025 legislative session Sunday evening after approving an operating budget agreement that hands WSU a $9.9 million blanket reduction to its biennial appropriation and other prescribed cuts as part of a broader plan to address a multi-billion dollar budget shortfall.
The agreement, laden with new taxes and cuts, doesn’t prescribe how WSU must cut its budget to achieve the $9.9 million in savings, a 1.5 percent reduction applied to all public colleges and universities. The budget also prescribes cuts to three appropriations made in 2023. It halves funding for the new Murrow News Fellowship and core support for the Ruckelshaus Center provided that year. It eliminates the entire $696,000 appropriation provided to support turfgrass research.
The budget provides $16.8 million in partial funding for cost-of-living adjustments for faculty and professional staff but at a state cost share that is reduced to just 56 percent, just as previous budget proposals had. The final budget accord does not fund WSU’s collective bargaining agreement with academic student employees or accreditation efforts at the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. It funded WSU’s $2.2 million request to continue its Native American scholarship program for another two years.
The agreement does not assume an additional tuition increase beyond what is already authorized in state law in fiscal year 2027 as the earlier Senate proposal did. Though bridge grants to provide additional assistance to the neediest students were eliminated, the Washington College Grant is kept largely whole for public institutions, with student eligibility for the maximum award rolled back slightly from 65 percent median family income to 60 percent. The agreement also does not prescribe employee furloughs.
The operating budget agreement now goes to Gov. Bob Ferguson to act on in the weeks to come.