Panel Offers ‘Safety Net’ For Higher Ed Funding But Opponents In 16-4 Vote Control Legislative Fate Of Plan

A state panel on Monday urged Washington lawmakers to approve a “safety net” for the state’s higher education system, earmarking revenue and shielding colleges from the annual budget battles at the Capitol.

But the proposal is dead on arrival at the Legislature unless backers agree to refer it to the people for a vote in the fall of 1997, critics said.

The package of higher education funding plans, hammered out by a commission that included Gov. Mike Lowry, legislators, labor and business leaders and higher education leaders, was approved on a 16-4 vote.

But the four foes included people who have do-or-die control over the legislation in Olympia: the House budget chairman, Tom Huff, R-Gig Harbor; the chairman and ranking member of the House Higher Education Committee, Don Carlson, R-Vancouver, and Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle; and the ranking member of the Senate Higher Education Committee, Eugene Prince, R-Thornton.

Huff called the plan “flawed education policy and a dangerous budgeting practice.”

The proposal, aimed at financing the current public college system, plus about 84,000 additional students by the year 2010, would create a dedicated funding source.

The current revenue, about $2 billion, or about 11 percent of the overall state budget, would be placed in a separate, protected account and allowed to grow annually by the rate of inflation, plus the percentage growth of the college-age population.

The projection is that funding would roughly double in the next 12 years. Actual appropriation still would be up to the Legislature, with the account balance the maximum they probably would spend. The formula was suggested by Charles Collins, a Mercer Island businessman and chairman of the Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The plan also would allow tuition to rise by the rate of inflation, currently about 3 percent or 4 percent a year. Local college trustees would be able to impose a different rate for all out-of-state students and for graduate and professional students. The Legislature would retain control only over instate undergraduate tuition.

Financial aid would increase.

The panel rejected a proposal to give businesses a tax credit for students they hire under work-study programs, but agreed to ask the Legislature to allow a tax break for companies that donate to an Innovation Fund.