As I discussed in an earlier post, the Senate version of the early action supplemental budget cut general fund–state funding to the higher education coordinating board (HEC Board) for the state need grant by $25.4 million. The Senate supplemental budget backfilled this loss in two steps. The first step was an appropriation of $25.4 million from the higher education institutions’ locally-controlled tuition accounts to the state-controlled opportunity pathways account. The second step was an appropriation of $25.4 million from the opportunity pathways account to the HEC Board.

The $25.4 million appropriated to the opportunity pathways account was apportioned across the institutions in this way: University of Washington lost $5,658,000; Washington State University, $3,718,000; Eastern Washington University, $765,000; Central Washington University, $705,000; The Evergreen State College, $386,000; Western Washington University, $1,010,000; and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, $13,143,000.

As finally enacted, the early action supplement budget cuts general fund appropriations to the HEC Board for the state need grant by $25.4 million without providing any backfill from another state account. Instead, the supplemental budget instructs the HEC Board to reduce need grants to the students of the various institutions by the amounts specified in the preceding paragraph and instructs each institution to make up the need grant losses of its students from locally-held funds.

The bottom line is the same for the institutions. However, one could argue that the new arrangement is marginally better than the original, in that it avoids explicitly transferring money from the institutional tuition accounts to a state account.