WA community colleges to be audited amid budget strain

Washington lawmakers want to take a closer look at the state’s community college system, ordering a review of what can improve and what can be cut or consolidated.

A new budget proviso passed at the end of the most recent legislative session directs the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges to deliver a report by December examining whether the system can reduce “redundancy and expenses that do not directly correlate to student success,” including a closer look at campus locations and district structures.

The directive arrives as colleges are already reeling from last year’s state budget reductions, and making deep budget cuts of their own, raising concerns that the report could lead to even more hurt down the road.

But state Rep. Mari Leavitt, D-University Place, said the directive is not intended to be harmful to the sector or curb access to education. She described the report as a way to examine whether the system is operating as efficiently as possible and being accountable to taxpayers, especially amid the state’s own budget difficulties. Over the summer, she said, she wants to explore the possibility of ordering similar reviews across the state’s public universities.

“I don’t think there was ever a concept in anyone’s mind that we were going to remove an institution from an (entire) region,” said Leavitt, who serves on both the higher education and appropriations committees in the House.

The proviso started out much harsher. Early drafts singled out specific community college districts (a collection of campuses in a specific region) for possible consolidation. Then, a later version in the House budget directed the state board to identify a college that could be consolidated. The final version, more flexible and with more deference to the state board’s judgment, came after some pushback from the community college sector, Leavitt said.

“Community and technical colleges are navigating significant fiscal uncertainty, and we will do all we can to keep them open for students and their communities,” Rachelle Alongi, a spokesperson for the state board said in an emailed statement.

The request comes more than a decade after lawmakers ordered a similar review of the system after the Great Recession. That analysis found Washington’s community and technical colleges were already relatively efficient compared to other states and did not appear to identify significant savings from consolidation.

At the same time, the report warned that repeated budget cuts were already limiting access, with fewer classes, reduced services and growing pressure on students to shoulder more of the costs.

Lawmakers say the new directive is meant to revisit those questions as financial pressures mount again.

“The Legislature is asking for information about if there are potential cost savings by consolidating some colleges,” said Rep. Dave Paul, D-Oak Harbor, who chairs the House higher education committee. “If you consolidate colleges you have the potential to have savings in terms of the administrative positions; you don’t need two Vice Presidents of Instruction.”

Paul emphasized the report is meant to inform future decisions, not dictate them, saying it would be “overzealous” to assume closures were imminent.

“This is a first step of finding out if there’s a path to making the system more sustainable,” he said.

Rep. Gerry Pollet, D-Seattle, said he supports reviewing the system’s structure but drew a clear line between efficiency efforts and reducing access.

“There might be program or administrative consolidations that could occur,” Pollet said. “That is a far cry from reducing an institution.”

But even without an intent to close campuses, he said, the report signals lawmakers are looking for savings in a system already under financial strain.

“I think it’s fair to read that as a threat,” Pollet said.