Riverpoint Education Park Could Face Funding Delays Locke Proposal Spreads Out Construction Money Over 4-6 Years

A plan to spread out spending for many college building projects could delay the completion of the Health Sciences Building for Spokane’s Riverpoint education park, Gov. Gary Locke said Wednesday.

Spreading out funding over four to six years also means obtaining approval in future budgets, he acknowledged in an interview with The Spokesman-Review editorial board. There’s no guarantee future legislatures will agree.

“We had to make some tough decisions,” Locke said.

The morning after announcing his operating and construction budgets in Olympia, Locke was in Spokane with Financial Manager Dick Thompson and Chief of Staff Joe Dear for the opening phase of selling the proposals around the state.

One feature of the construction budget is a multi-step process for major college projects such as the planned Health Sciences building: Design money in one two-year budget cycle, construction money in the next cycle.

In the past, many projects received all their money in a single two-year cycle.

Under his plan, Locke wants the state to spend $2 million to begin the design and purchase land over the next two years, and $21 million on construction of the classroom buildings starting in 1999. He’d wait until 2001 to spend the final $8 million for research laboratories that are included in the plan.

Spreading out funding for the building could delay its completion by about six months, Thompson said.

Terry Novak, executive director of the Joint Center for Higher Education where the building is planned, said Wednesday that architects estimate the delay could be closer to 10 months. But it wouldn’t be two years, as was incorrectly reported Wednesday in The Spokesman-Review.

Novak said he doesn’t doubt Locke’s commitment to the project. But he is concerned about pushing the final phase of the project into the next century, which could also mean leaving it for a new administration.

Building it in phases could also increase the cost, Novak said. There are some savings by doing all the design and construction at once, although he didn’t have any estimates on the amount of those savings.

In discussing a key element of his operating budget, a welfare reform proposal dubbed Work First, Locke said the statewide program would be adjusted to meet special needs of different areas.

The program calls for welfare recipients to find work or sign up for community service programs in four weeks. But Locke said Wednesday that time period may be extended in areas with high unemployment.

Applicants in Pend Oreille County, which on Tuesday reported a state-high unemployment rate of more than 16 percent, might be given six weeks because of northeast Washington’s weak economy and its distance from areas with available jobs, he said.

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