Eastern deals with potentially bleak 2015-17 budget

Arguably, the Great Recession ended in 2010.

But don’t tell revenues in the state of Washington, which still limp along, forcing agencies to look everywhere to fund their programs. And higher education is once again one of the first places the state is targeting to fill in the gap.

According to the state budget update prepared by the Office of Financial Management in Olympia, state revenue collections “are also rebounding, but at a much slower pace than after previous recessions.”

Based on a normal growth of 4.5 percent, the general fund would eclipse $20 billion by the end of 2014, but current projections put that number just over $16 billion. Compared to 1983 when general fund revenue stood at about 7-percent of personal income in the state, the projected figure in 2015 is now under 5-percent.

That may be due in part to this recession’s job recovery being the slowest in seven post-World War II economic slow downs. The state report indicates that it’s taken nearly 70 months, almost six years, to recover lost jobs.

While public colleges and universities across the state are a place Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has suggested budgets be trimmed by 15 percent and contribute to fixing the anticipated shortfall, leaders of these institutions are politely telling him not so fast.

Through a letter, the Washington State Council of Presidents is telling the governor there’s not much more that can be cut out of higher education’s 9.2 percent slice of the state budget pie.

The presidents’ letter stated that while they appreciated “the strong support,” the governor showed in the past, “At the same time, we must point out that a 15-percent reduction in funding would not only completely undo recent progress but would put our state back on the path of historic state disinvestment in public higher education.”

According to a report from the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board, adjusted state biennial funding per budgeted full-time equivalent student has fallen from just over $8,000 to about $5,500 between the 1989-91 and 2009-11 bienniums.

The 2015-17 EWU budget, projected at $497.8 million, and not taking into consideration that possible cut, is necessary the school says, “to sustain the current scope and quality of education.”

Eastern has recently held fast with no tuition increases. “The last two years it was frozen,” EWU Director of Media Relations, Dave Meany, said.

In the past, schools like Eastern have horse-traded so-to-speak with the Legislature, telling them if you give them more money there will be no tuition increases.

This year, if the budgets have cuts schools have no choice.

The McCleary Decision will require the state to add nearly $6 billion to K-12 education spending over the next four years and higher education cuts are just one way to fill the need.

When asked to prepare that what-if budget scenario reflecting the 15 percent reduction in spending, the institutions balked. “Nobody wanted to put together a specific model of here’s where we would cut, (because) they didn’t want people to panic,” Meany said.

The exercise in number crunching based on the 15 percent number could also be seen as a time-consuming and expensive exercise likened to grade school busy-work because the final cuts might just be a moving target.

“We don’t know if they’re going to go that high, if they’re going to go 10, 8, 5 (percent), we have no idea,” Meany said.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.