Fighting Cuts in 2026
The Washington State Legislature’s budget determines which programs and projects, including financial aid and hands-on learning, will be funded in the coming year. Despite significant challenges, the 2025 session exciting results, particularly for higher education in general and WSU in particular.
However the beginning of 2026 came with some significant new hurdles. The Governor’s first operating budget includede $8 million for deferred maintenance projects — but left other institutional priorities unfunded.
We asked you to write to your lawmakers.
You rose to the occasion.
Hundreds of WSU Impact members wrote thousands of emails to lawmakers, expressing concern that WSU had already made significant cuts, slashing its budget by 10% in just the last three years. You implored your representatives in Olympia that, without full funding, we risked losing the exceptional faculty, staff, and graduate students who make WSU an invaluable asset to our state.
They heard you.
Operating budget proposals released by Legislative leadership showed that lawmakers understood the need for more funding for higher education. Ultimately, the Legislature adjourned in March, having approved supplemental operating and capital budget agreements that yield a $3.3 million operating reduction for WSU while making investments in a handful of capital improvements for the university.
Some of the wins from this Legislative session include:
$6 million for minor works projects.
$7 million to design and renovate space for Team Health Education in Spokane. In tandem with an updated reappropriation of $2.9 million from last biennium, this would be sufficient to complete the renovation.
$1.5 million for upgrades to Ensminger Pavilion in Pullman.
$400,000 for upgrading soil health research infrastructure.
$1 million to improve energy systems in the WSU Creamery.
$500,000 for a virtual fencing study for the cattle industry.
You helped make this happen. And we’re going to need your strong, clear voices again in the next session, too.
Strong public universities like WSU fuel Washington’s workforce, innovation, and communities. Thank you for standing with WSU and ensuring the funding WSU needs to thrive.
In 2024, WSU Impact members proudly supported:
Senate Bill 5913 - Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL)
Governor Jay Inslee signed into law a bill that will clarify state ethics law for university employees engaging student athletes in activities regarding the student’s name, image, and likeness (NIL).
Senate Bill 5913 received bipartisan support from lawmakers in the Senate and House during the 2024 legislative session that adjourned last week. Sponsored by Sen. Javier Valdez, the bill responds to guidelines adopted by the NCAA in 2021 that permit student athletes to engage in activities involving NIL. Since then, several states have adopted a patchwork of policies related to NIL.
The Ethics in Public Service Act governs public employee activity and is ambiguous about NIL activities. The bill amends the Act to clarify that certain public university employees in Washington are not prohibited from using public resources in advising, facilitation, acknowledgement or education pertaining to NIL and student athletes seeking to benefit from it, so long as those resources are within the discretion of the employee.
$40 million to match philanthropic funds to build a new student services building for the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture
Thanks to a huge investment from Edmund and Beatriz Schweitzer and the Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, WSU has already made great headway on its funding goal without asking the legislature.
Previous Victories:
2025 Legislative Outcomes:
Operating Budget
Legislative leaders adjourned the state’s 2025 legislative session after approving an operating budget agreement that hands WSU a $9.9 million general reduction to its biennial appropriation and other prescribed cuts as part of a broader plan to address a multi-billion dollar budget shortfall.
Funded in the operating budget were the following:
· Provides $16.8 million in partial funding for cost-of-living adjustments for faculty and professional staff.
· Provides temporary funding for WSU’s $2.2 million request to continue its Native American scholarship program for another two years.
The operating budget did not fund the following:
· WSU’s entire $696,000 appropriation provided to support turfgrass research, and targeted reductions to the Murrow News Fellowship, and core support for the Ruckelshaus Center.
· No funding allocated for WSU’s collective bargaining agreement with academic student employees.
· No funding allocated for accreditation efforts at the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine.
Capital Budget
The capital budget agreement released was approved on April 27 and sent to Gov. Bob Ferguson’s desk.
The construction plan funds top university priorities around minor works and work toward replacing Heald Hall on the Pullman campus but notably does not fund construction of the Team Health Education Building in Spokane.
Funded in the budget were the following:
· Full funding for WSU’s $40 million request for minor works preservation.
· $5 million of the university’s $20 million request for minor works program, which pays for equipment purchases and small-scale renovations.
· Full funding for WSU’s $25 million request to demolish Heald Hall and design a replacement.
· Full funding for WSU’s $3 million request for a chiller plant upgrade at Vancouver.
· Full funding for WSU’s $3 million request to design a new Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab satellite at Puyallup.
· Full funding for WSU’s $10 million request to construct a new plant growth facility at Wenatchee.
· Full funding for WSU’s $500,000 for pre-design of a dairy modernization project at Pullman.
· The budget also provided funds for two Pullman projects WSU did not request: $750,000 for greenhouse renovations and $150,000 for beef center renovations.
Reauthorizing the Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation
WSU prioritized a reauthorization of the Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation.
A bill passed by the Legislature and sent to the governor will extend its sunset date from 2020 to 2030. Established in 2012, JCATI was appropriated $3 million in the biennial budget to fund seed grants for research in the aerospace industry at state institutions of higher education. About $1.2 million of those funds, on average, have funded research projects at WSU.
Washington State Soil Health Initiative
Successfully funded in the operating budget was the Soil Health Initiative, a multi-agency research and extension initiative between WSU, the state Department of Agriculture and the state Conservation Commission. Legislation was passed in tandem with the funding in the operating budget that formally establishes the initiative to develop new strategies to improve soil across the state and get those strategies into the hands of growers
Washington State University Vancouver Life Sciences Building
$4 million of the state’s supplemental capital budget in the capital budget will go towards designing the Life Science Building at WSU Vancouver. Just over half of the student body at WSU Vancouver is composed of first-generation college students.
The building will provide much needed teaching and research space, so that this campus can continue to enhance educational attainment in Southwest Washington, alongside its regional educational partners.