[Wsssc] We have reached the 2023 legislative finish line

[Lauren Hibbs]

Dear WSSSC,

Happy Monday! The 2023 legislative session ended last night a few minutes past 10pm. I write to share some great news on how we landed in a few key priority areas.

Executive Paul Frances shared a great summary, " We have much to celebrate. This includes passage of legislation concerning student basic needs, student financial aid, nursing, dual credit, and more. On the capital budget side, we received funding for seven major new construction projects across our system and significant funding to repair, maintain, and preserve our existing facilities. The 2023-25 biennial operating budget included fully funded compensation increases - for the first time in years - for faculty and staff in addition to critical new system investments in diversity, equity, and inclusion, nursing education, student basic needs, dual credit, student financial aid, refugee assistance, and more."

Below and attached include a message and budget composition from Choi Halladay. I hope to complete further analysis and be in touch with our area no later than the end of the week with additional information.

On a personal note, being new to the agency this session, I cannot express my appreciation and gratitude enough for each one of your contributions, conversations, wisdom, responses, and steadfast hope for students and staff. You make this work exceedingly meaningful and a true calling of service.  Thank you so much!



Good morning,

Attached you will find a detailed breakdown of the Conference Budget that was released yesterday. It compares our system request with the Governor's proposal, the House and Senate individual chamber proposals, and the final Conference Committee bill.

In summary, the most important thing to note is that our COLA request was funded at 100%. This is shown in several lines over the first page of the attached PDF. The key item is called "Compensation Support" which is funded at $54,874,000. This is to make up the difference between the "normal fund split" for COLAs in a typical budget bill and the full funding from the General Fund that our system needed.

An interesting note is that the section in the appropriations act for our system (Section 605) has fifty-four (54!!) provisos. In the 2019-21 budget bill there were twenty-five, and in the 2015-17 budget bill there were twelve. As you already know, each proviso brings with it a separate set of accountability, financial reporting, and overall administrative resource cost.

Please feel free to contact me or Cherie Berthon (cberthon at sbctc.edu<mailto:cberthon at sbctc.edu>) if you have questions about specific line items.


[Compass]

Choi Halladay
Deputy Executive Director, Business Operations
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
challaday at sbctc.edu<mailto:challaday at sbctc.edu> * o: 360-704-4303 * f: 360-704-4415



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