Ewu Closer To Recovering State Funds Panel’s Staff Backs $1.84 Million Request; 100 Faculty Jobs To Be Cut

Eastern Washington University on Wednesday drew a step closer to retrieving money being withheld by the state until the Cheney school boosts its student enrollment.

Analysts with the state Higher Education Coordinating Board recommended approval of EWU’s request to recover $1.84 million to meet faculty payroll in the current academic year.

At the same time, Eastern promised to reduce expenses by cutting 100 full-time faculty positions over three years, shrinking from 420 in 1996 to 320 in 1999.

About 24 of those positions have already been eliminated.

“Rather than create turmoil and total disruption of their school, we’re going along with Eastern’s proposal,” said Dan Keller, associate director of the coordinating board.

The nine-person board meets next Wednesday in Olympia to consider Eastern’s request.

The board, which is appointed by the governor to carry out laws set by the Legislature, is not obligated to agree with its staff.

But the recommendation indicates that Eastern has met the legal requirements for securing the funds. Without the $1.84 million, one official said, Eastern’s board of directors would have to rewrite its budget and make painful cuts after students have returned to school.

“It would be tough, really tough, to do,” said George Durrie, director of government relations.

The board also is expected to release another $285,000 to Eastern as its share of a fund that the Legislature withheld from state universities until they prepared “accountability” plans that will measure student retention, faculty productivity and other factors beginning next year.

The $1.84 million is part of a $3.2 million fund that the Legislature decided to withhold last spring until Eastern returned its enrollment to an earlier budgeted level of 7,742 full-time students.

Under the law, money could be released incrementally when enrollment began to exceed 6,942. A separate clause allows money to be released to meet payroll contracts with tenured faculty. That’s the clause that Eastern is asking the board to trigger.

Eastern predicts it will have 6,658 students when school opens Sept. 22. That would be nearly 1,100 students below the state target and 300 fewer than last year.

Those figures may make it difficult for Eastern to recover the remaining $1.35 million in money withheld by the Legislature. Durrie said Eastern will argue that it needs the money to beef up its education programs and recruitment efforts to lure more students to campus.

The coordinating board is expected to hear the request in October.

, DataTimes