Late last night/early this morning the Senate Ways and Means Committee approved a 2019–21 operating budget. We wrote about the budget as proposed by the W&M Chair in a policy brief yesterday.

As amended by the committee, the budget would appropriate $52.170 billion from funds subject to the outlook for 2019–21. Committee amendments reduced appropriations by a net of $1.9 million compared to the original proposal. The reduction is due to a significant maintenance level (the cost of continuing current services) reduction for Washington State University (-$21.5 million). Spending for new policy would increase by $19.7 million over the Chair’s proposal.

The policy changes include $5.0 million for the census and $4.0 million for youth homelessness. Additionally, the original proposal would have increased foundational support for the higher education institutions by $42.8 million. As passed by the committee, this support is reduced by $6.9 million, to $35.9 million. It is not an across-the-board reduction: the University of Washington and the Community and Technical College System see reductions while support is added to the other institutions.