Gregoire’s proposed budget

OLYMPIA – Here’s a look at some of the biggest cuts, local cuts and some new local spending contained in Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed budget.

Major cuts

Education

•Do away with cost-of-living raises for teachers and other school staffers for the next two years: $349 million.

•Eliminate a variety of school pilot programs, including the reading corps, civics curriculum and math-helping corps: $23 million.

•“Suspend” about a quarter of the money for class-size reduction: $178 million.

Higher education

•Across-the-board cuts of up to 13 percent at four-year colleges and 6 percent at community and technical colleges. The colleges can decide what to cut, although effects may include cutting faculty, cutting support staff and offering fewer classes. Savings: $342 million.

•Do away with faculty and staff cost-of-living raises at community and technical colleges: $33.4 million.

Human services

•Do away with the Adult Day Health program, which serves about 1,900 elderly and developmentally disabled people: $20 million.

•Reduce nursing home reimbursement rates by 5 percent: $46 million.

•Shrink mental health funding for Regional Support Networks: $31 million.

•Toughen accountability for welfare recipients and push them into jobs more quickly: $30 million.

Health care

•Stop buying vaccines for children not covered by Medicaid: $50 million.

•Cut the state’s Basic Health Plan for the working poor by 42 percent and shrink the things it will cover.

•Halt plans to let parents buy state-subsidized health coverage if they’re between 250 percent and 300 percent of poverty level (for a family of four, that’s $53,000 to $63,600 per year). Savings: $6 million.

•Eliminate General Assistance for the Unemployable, which provides health care and issues checks of up to $339 a month to thousands of people. Savings: $251 million.

•Cut hospital reimbursement rates by 4 percent: $47 million.

Natural resources

•Close seven yet-to-be-determined fish hatcheries: $7 million.

•Close 13 yet-to-be-determined state parks, plus other parks during off-peak seasons: $5 million.

Law enforcement

•Shorten probation and eliminate probation supervision for misdemeanors and low-risk felonies: $69 million.

•Shrink drug and alcohol treatment: $11 million.

Local cuts or changes

•Cut the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute budget by 9 percent.

•Reduce state funding for the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture by 10 percent and merge it with the Washington State Historical Society, saving $500,000 a year.

•Let tuition at Eastern Washington University and Washington State University rise up to 7 percent a year, and 5 percent at community colleges.

Proposed new spending on local projects

•$32.3 million for a technical education building at Spokane Community College.

•$29.3 million for a new chemistry and life sciences building at Spokane Falls Community College.

•$9.7 million to renovate the old science building at Spokane Community College.

•$13.8 million to renovate Spokane Falls Community College’s music building 15.

•$250,000 for predesign work for a new building to replace SFCC’s photography and fine arts buildings.

•$28 million to renovate and expand Eastern Washington University’s Patterson Hall.

•$400,000 for predesign work on a replacement to Eastern’s 46-year-old science building.

•$7.4 million for work on a biomedical sciences facility at Washington State University’s Pullman campus.

•$250,000 for predesign work on a new biomedical and health sciences building at WSU’s Riverpoint campus in Spokane.

•$586,000 to research Spokane-area water rights.

•$144,000 for predesign work on a new maintenance facility at Mount Spokane State Park.