April 16, 2025\u2014The delicate Yoshiro cherry blossoms have come and gone, but the Kwanzan cherry trees which line the Capitol grounds are out with brilliant, robust pink flowers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For political veterans, this is the signal that the budget endgame is nigh. Legislators have a scant eleven days to debate and pass revenue bills, settle on cut targets and deliver approved operating, transportation and capital budgets to Governor Ferguson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For higher education and Evergreen, the outlines of our budgets are still unclear. In conversations with higher ed committee-member legislators last Saturday April 12, Evergreen President John Carmichael and Government Relations Director Sandy Kaiser pushed hard against a House cut proposal of $7.8 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This unique cut for Evergreen would come on top of a 3% cut for all public four-year institutions. It\u2019s aimed at bringing the college\u2019s per-student costs closer to those of the larger public four-year colleges. This cut would be catastrophic for Evergreen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After we made the case, House legislators agreed to consider a lower cut of $1.8 million. <\/strong>They are currently negotiating with their Senate counterparts, who have proposed an Evergreen operating budget that would provide a slight overall increase to the college over the next biennium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent conversations with legislators like House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, Rep. Joe Timmons, Rep. Lisa Parshley, Rep. Beth Doglio, Rep. Mari Leavitt, Sen. Jessica Bateman and Senator Drew Hansen, we are saying that even the $1.8 million proposed House cut is unfair. It could lead to layoffs at our Olympia and Tacoma campuses, hardship for students and damage to our positive enrollment momentum. We also note that as Evergreen grows enrollment, it closes the gap in costs per student. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Insiders are predicting the Legislature will finish on time April 27, although they will be working nights and weekends to get there. The Legislature will hear a suite<\/a> of major revenue bills this week, which would raise nearly $12 billion over four years. Democratic leaders are hoping to move them to the floor of the House and Senate this Saturday. Final budget bills are expected to be released on April 24. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" April 16, 2025\u2014The delicate Yoshiro cherry blossoms have come and gone, but the Kwanzan cherry trees which line the Capitol grounds are out with brilliant, robust pink flowers. For political veterans, this is the signal that the budget endgame is… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5116,"featured_media":176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/evergreenleg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}