The House and Senate released their versions of the 2025-27 capital budget on Monday with the Senate Ways and Means Committee and House Capital Budget Committee hearing testimony on Tuesday. Also this week, Wednesday marked the cutoff deadline for bills from the opposite chamber to be voted out of their policy committees.

In operating budget news, Gov. Bob Ferguson held a press conference Tuesday in which he rejected House and Senate proposals to include "too many" new taxes, specifically calling out a wealth tax plan, to help close the nearly $16 billion budget shortfall expected over the next four years.

Calling the wealth tax "novel, untested, and difficult to implement," Ferguson said that he would not sign either budget.

"If the Legislature wishes to complete our work on time, they need to immediately move the budget discussions in a significantly different direction on both of these issues," he said.

On Wednesday, the Senate unanimously passed the State Board-requested bill that would give community and technical colleges the ability to waive course fees for students attending their schools to earn a high school diploma or certificate.

"It will help people get their high school diplomas at community college much earlier and much faster," Sen. Drew Hansen said.

That bill now heads to Gov. Ferguson for his decision.

The bill that would extend the Customized Training Program's business and occupation tax credit until 2031 was up for a hearing in this morning's House Finance Committee meeting. The State Board-requested bills that would provide tuition waivers for Tribal elders and expanding the College Bound Scholarship are on this afternoon's House Appropriations Committee agenda. Look for coverage of those hearings in next week's Legislative News.

Capital budget proposals released

House and Senate capital budget writers released their versions of that budget on Monday, with committee members hearing testimony on Tuesday. For the community and technical college system, the House budget offers $403 million in new funding, including full funding of systemwide asks for preventative maintenance and minor works and repairs. It would also fund:

  • Grays Harbor Lake Swano Dam study
  • Olympic College Innovation and Technology Learning Center
  • Lower Columbia Center for Vocational and Transitional Studies
  • Columbia Basin College Performing Arts Building Replacement
  • Whatcom Community College Technology and Engineering Center

The House budget also authorizes the five alternative financing requests at Columbia Basin College, Edmonds College, Clover Park Technical College, Renton Technical College, and South Puget Sound Community College.

The Senate’s $400 million budget provides $33 million less than the amount the college system requested for minor works and reduces the number of minor works categories, giving more flexibility to colleges for change projects when emergent needs arise. The budget would fund the same projects as the House’s proposal as well as Cascadia College’s CC5 Gateway Building.

The Senate budget authorizes alternative financing requests at Columbia Basin, Edmonds, and Clover Park, but does not do so for projects at Renton or South Puget Sound.

Darrell Jennings, capital budget director for the State Board, thanked members of the House Capital Budget Committee and Senate Ways and Means Committee for their proposals, and asked that the writers consider adding additional projects to their list.

“Our budget development process is rigorous and data-driven, ensuring that every project is based upon need, impact, and urgency,” he told members of both committees.

He also asked members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee to fully fund statewide minor works and authorize the alternative financing projects at Renton and South Puget Sound.

Jim Mulick, vice president for finance, grants, and institutional effectiveness at Edmonds College, asked both committees to include the college’s project in their budgets.

“Delaying construction funding longer could create a six-year gap between design and construction funding,” he said to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. “For the past four years, the college has worked diligently to ensure the project is construction ready for this request.”

Testifying before the House Capital Budget Committee, Eric Murray, president of Cascadia College, told committee members that costs for supplies and labor would increase if construction funding for his college’s project is delayed.

“We've spent $3 million to have our permits ready, our general contractor ready, our designs ready so that we could break ground given the tradition of giving us the design money in the first biennium followed by the construction money in the second biennium,” he said.

House higher education committee learns about College in the High School programs

April 1 — Members of the House Postsecondary Education and Workforce Committee spent their meeting Tuesday learning more about College in the High School in the state’s colleges and universities. College in the High School is a program open to high school 9th through 12th graders in which they take college-level classes at their high school. Students learn from high school faculty trained by colleges using college curriculum. Those passing their class can earn high school and college credit at the same time.

Speaking on behalf of the community and technical college system were Jaime Traugott, director of student services and K-12 alignment at the State Board, and Patrick Blaine, dean for humanities, arts, and social sciences at Whatcom Community College.

Speaking first, Traugott described the program to committee members, including its accreditation requirements, funding, participating system colleges, and enrollment. Over 13,000 students were enrolled in a College in the High School class in the 2023-24 school year.

“They're going to have that same quality and rigor that you're going to have if you're sitting in a campus class, and students are held to the same standards of achievement as students that are in our on-campus courses,” she said.

College in the High School is free to students, thanks to a bill passed by the Legislature in 2023. Traugott attributed that bill to increasing program enrollment—a 53% jump from the 2022-23 school year to the 2023-24 school year.

“[It] has been incredible for our students,” she said. “It really has removed a lot of barriers for students to access that [program].”

Diving into student demographics, Traugott pointed out significant increases to the number of students of color enrolled in College in the High School classes — a 155% jump from the 2018-19 school year to the 2023-24 school year. She attributed the rise to the 2023 bill.

The program also shows high student success with 96% of students earning at least a C in their course. A 2024 report by the Washington state auditor showed 95% of College in the High School courses transfer to a college or university. For students graduating in 2022, 27% enrolled in a community or technical college within a year of graduation, a 7% increase from the previous year.

High schools are also looking at opening workforce-related programs, such as a Pharmacy Technician program offered in partnership with North Seattle College and a Nursing Assistant certification offered in partnership with Clover Park Technical College.

“When you look at dual credit, that's still a challenging area for students to access that versus the transfer route,” Traugott said.

Speaking to challenges, Traugott attributed College in the High School’s funding model to making it difficult for small programs to operate, recruit and train qualified instructors, compensate college faculty mentors, and provide additional support services for students. Additionally, state law requires all college partners be nationally accredited by the 2027-28 school year, and all schools offering the program must be reviewed by the College in the High School Standards Report Review Committee. With these challenges, Clark College closed its program in 2024, Everett Community College is slated to close some of its programs and Whatcom Community College is readying to close its entire program in the 2025-26 school year.

Speaking to College in the High School offered through Whatcom Community College, Blaine explained the difficulties presented by funding. The program offers about 12 unique sections of College in the High School courses this school year, but with an anticipated gap between costs and reimbursement coupled with required staffing, the program is unsustainable.

“It was a difficult decision for us because we have a large rural portion of our of our district that that we were interested in serving in this way,” Blaine said.

Despite the program’s expected closure, Blaine said the college wants to continue to strengthen relationships with area K-12 schools, expand Running Start, and look for ways to bridge rural-urban equity gaps in access to college.

“We really genuinely are interested in this space and continue to look at efforts on the state level as well as the national level to develop policy and resources for this type of dual credit offering,” he said.

Trustees confirmed by Senate

The Senate this week confirmed six trustees to the boards of their colleges:

Coming up next week

House and Senate fiscal committees will continue their work until Tuesday when bills need to be voted out of those committees to continue in the legislative process. For the remainder of the week, members of the House and Senate will head to floors of their chambers to debate and vote on bills from the opposite chamber.