EWU board of trustees adopt 2017 operating budget

At its June 24 meeting, the Eastern Washington University board of trustees approved the operating budget of $280.14 million for the 2017 fiscal year.

The budget includes a 15 percent resident undergraduate tuition decrease, which was authorized by the legislature.

In the fall, EWU’s basic annual tuition rate will be $5,994 annually, or $1,998 per quarter. This does not include the student service and activity fee.

The board also approved the fiscal year 2015-17 capital budget totaling over $84.26 million. This includes more than $44 million in local dollars for the Pence Union Building remodel project, and $38.6 million in state revenue.

In other action items, the board approved the collective bargaining agreement between United Faculty of Eastern and the university, effective Sept. 1 through Aug. 31, 2019. Annika Scharosch, from the Washington Attorney General’s Office, said the agreement includes an annual 2 percent raise in the base salary of lecturers, senior lecturers, faculty in residence, probationary and tenured faculty. It also includes six weeks of parental leave for employees with multi-year contracts.

The board also received an update on the PUB remodel project.

Stacey Morgan Foster, EWU vice president for student affairs, said the one bid staff received for the project came in 13 percent — $5 million — over the project’s estimated cost. Staff will re-scope the project and put it back out to bid.

“There will be some parts of the project, such as repainting the bricks, that will not be included in the main scope,” Foster said. “We are leaving the multi-cultural center in the project’s main design.

Foster added that she expects the bidding process to be “a more competitive environment” this time.

“When we put this out to bid before, there were a lot more school district-related projects that were out there,” Foster said. “Those have now passed.”

Foster added that the university will continue to relocate people out of the PUB, but the project will be pushed back a couple of months.

In other business:

• The board approved the meeting dates for 2017-19.

• It also approved a resolution that appoints Jim Butler, plumbing supervisor for the university, the specialist for EWU’s Cross Connection Control Program.

Al Stover can be reached at al@cheneyfreepress.com.