State cuts $1 million of WSU budget, less than originally expected

Cuts to Washington State University will not be as deep as previously thought under the supplemental budget the Washington Legislature recently passed.

WSU will lose $1.4 million under the budget lawmakers agreed on. This is a stark contrast to the one Gov. Bob Ferguson proposed in December, which would have slashed around $11 million to WSU, a 3.2% cut.

“In the wash, higher ed came out pretty well; WSU came out great,” said Chris Mulick, director of State Relations at WSU.

WSU will lose $1.9 million in funding from the Climate Commitment Act for the Institute for Northwest Energy Futures on the Tri-Cities campus.

Along with the reductions came $6 million from the capital budget to address the nearly $2 billion in deferred maintenance WSU has backlogged across the entire university. Also approved is $7 million to finish renovating space for the Team Health Education program in Spokane.

Mulick attributed the difference to the relatively positive budget forecast in February, which projected the state will have $1.8 billion more than previously thought.

Along with the many lobbyists the school employs, WSU President Betsy Cantwell spent days in Olympia speaking with legislators last month, passing out ice cream sandwiches in the lobby of the Capitol.

“Legislators love to hear from the president,” he said. “You wouldn’t have wanted to go to battle without all of the tools that we’ve had. And so having the president here absolutely was impactful.”

Bhargav Iyer, the Associated Students of WSU legislative affairs director, was happy the budget cuts were not as bad as originally proposed but still had concerns over how institutional cuts will affect students.

“This is something that we were looking at, and we’re kind of anxiously waiting, whatever impacts the institution, at the end of the day, also impacts us,” he said. “If the institution takes a cut, that tends to be reflected in a variety of ways. It could be programming, it could be coursework, it could be faculty, it could be administration.”

In 2025, WSU received a nearly $10 million cut from the state, leading to reductions across the university system that included gutting the nearly 80-year-old Design and Printing services in October. The cuts also led to layoffs and continued tuition hikes.