The Board of Regents of Washington State University will consider the university’s 2003-2005 budget during the board’s November meeting at 9 a.m. Friday, Nov. 21 in the Cascade Ballroom II of the Westin Hotel, 1900 Fifth Avenue, Seattle.
The regents’ action on the budget follows a series of meetings that were held through the fall by university budget officials with each of the administrative units. The budget includes a general salary increase of 2 percent for faculty, administrative and professional staff and graduate assistants, which will go into effect Jan. 1, 2004. The budget will also fund initiatives aimed at improving undergraduate education, will fund several research initiatives and will provide $367,000 to address the issue of health benefits for graduate assistants. Complete details of the budget proposal are available at http://www.ir.wsu.edu/budget/docs/AllocationsWeb.pdf.
The board is also expected to act on name changes for two WSU units. The College of Agriculture and Home Economics would become the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences, and the Cooperative Extension would become the WSU Extension.
The regents will be asked to authorize the university to select a consulting firm to provide planning and design services for the renovation of the current Pullman Memorial Hospital into administrative workspaces. The hospital is scheduled to move to its new facility on Bishop Boulevard in Pullman in the fall of 2004.
The regents will also be asked to approve an increase in the project cost for the renovation of the Bailey Brayton Baseball Field, which is now underway. Poor soil conditions on the site have required more excavation and gravel in-fill to provide a suitable base for the field, which will be covered with FieldTurf, the same surface currently used at Martin Stadium. The increased site work and the need to replace a transformer to meet code and increase electrical capacity has raised the overall cost of the project from $1.55 million to $1.9 million. The original cost was to be paid from donated funds; the additional money will come from the minor capital renewal budget.
Also on the agenda is a proposal to authorize the university to begin the process of selecting a general contractor/construction manager for a new building to house the Intercollegiate College of Nursing/WSU College of Nursing on the Riverpoint Higher Education campus in Spokane.
The regents will also be asked to approve design documents and grant authority to proceed on Phase II of the improvement project for Library Road on the Pullman campus.
The WSU Board of Regents also is scheduled to hold a joint meeting with the University of Washington Board of Regents at 3:45 p.m. Friday in the Walker-Ames Room 300 of Kane Hall at the UW campus.
The boards will consider a joint resolution urging the Legislature to fund Washington’s research universities at a comparable rate to other states’ research universities. Under the resolution, the universities would cap freshman and transfer enrollments until significant progress is made in improving per student state appropriations.
