Legislative session: final scene of long effort

The recent conclusion of the State Legislative session wraps-up over a year of communications planning and political strategizing for the UW’s Offices of University Relations and Government Relations.

Preparation for the 1999 legislative session began in January 1998 when President Richard L. McCormick asked Vice President for University Relations Bob Edie to develop a preliminary analysis and recommendations on how the University should approach the critically important goal of improving faculty and staff salaries in the 1999 biennial budget session of the Legislature. Edie outlined the salary problems facing the UW and drafted a strategy for addressing the issue with the Legislature in a memorandum to the President.

“We knew this would be a difficult session due to the Initiative 601 spending limit and the many demands on the state’s budget,” said Edie, “We had to come up with a focused strategy to address the Legislature in this biennial budget session.”

His memo emphasized the need to turn the corner on our salary problem with a “multi-year approach, coupled with targeted requests to deal with extraordinary market and merit issues and the continued use of tuition for salary increases.”

Edie’s memo was circulated throughout the campus and started a series of conversations on the salary issue culminating in a final decision on the UW salary request by the Board of Regents last fall. The Regents approved an annual salary request of 4.5 percent, a $3.7 million recruitment and retention pool and flexibility in the budget language to respond to salary issues. The salary request package was then taken to the Council of Presidents (the association of all six of the state’s public, four-year higher education institutions) where the legislative officers, budget officers and provosts from each school negotiated a request agreement for all six schools and how it would be divided. After much discussion and deliberation, the group decided on a recruitment and retention request of $8 million—$3.7 million for the UW. All six schools worked as a united front to gain the support of the Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Governor’s 2020 Commission and the business community.

In April of 1998, University Relations began laying the foundation for a broad-based communications plan to increase support for the UW and its 1999-01 biennial budget request. A statewide survey and focus group research showed that although the general public had a very positive feeling about the UW, their impression and interest was not very deep. When pressed further about whether they would stand behind the University on legislative issues or support a tax increase to fund higher education needs, the public’s interest decreased substantially. Research proved the need to approach each UW constituency based on their level of understanding and interest, and that each constituency would ultimately affect our state decision makers.

“Research reinforced much of what we were already doing to increase support for our legislative issues, but it helped us to implement a more focused plan,” commented Sherry Burkey, associate vice president for University Relations and director of Government Relations. “Our strategy included intensifying collaboration with other public and private colleges and universities and K-12, expanding advocates in the private sector, enhancing statewide activities and events, increasing communications with internal and external constituencies, escalating utilization of third parties, both internal and external, and maximizing visibility of our three campuses with their local constituencies.”

The communications plan was launched last year with a series of Puget Sound-area editorial board meetings featuring select faculty members and students from each of the areas visited. Legislative districts coffees were hosted by UW alumni, faculty and staff in strategic parts of the state. Each host/hostess invited his or her legislator and facilitated a discussion about higher education and the UW. Constituents had open conversations with their legislators and were able to voice their concerns about the future of higher education. Legislators were frank about their limitations, but listened with open ears.

“These meetings were beneficial for all parties involved,” reported Kevin Evanto, associate director of Government Relations and Alumni Outreach, “Alumni, faculty and staff were enthusiastic about meeting with their legislators to voice their opinions, and legislators welcomed their perspective and valued the opportunity to explain what the limitations of the session would be—they were quite candid.”

Other communications activities prior to the session included President McCormick’s statewide tour. McCormick traveled throughout the state for four days with Burkey, Evanto and individual faculty members doing research affecting each region and students who were from each area. They met with legislators, alumni, civic groups, community colleges, newspaper and TV reporters discussing the future of the University and the UW budget request for the 1999 session.

Implementation of the communications plan also required the creation of new publications and presentation materials including the Report to the State—a narrative and pictorial summary of the University’s budget request, giving brief descriptions of each item in the proposal and putting faces on the faculty, staff and students who benefit from our services and facilities. Also part of the session communications package were one-page issue papers that provided brief, easy-to-read background, analysis and summary of each part of the operating and capital budget request. These issue papers were used individually, as a select combination for specific meetings and hearings and bound together for a complete resource guide known as the Legislative Briefing Packet. A Powerpoint presentation on the capital budget was created for legislative committee hearings and meetings with staff. It highlighted the UW’s four major capital project requests and contained photos of the some of outdated facilities in many campus departments.

Meetings with high-technology industry leaders were coordinated prior to the session to discuss commonalties between business and University legislative issues. Industry representatives were later very helpful in supporting the UW/WSU Advanced Technology Initiative, (an economic impact program converting academic research into direct economic benefits for the state), funding for the Gigapop/Next Generation Internet and internet connectivity, our capital priorities and faculty salary improvements.

Other pre-session activities included coordination of campus visits by individual legislators and groups of legislative staff. Each visit gave legislators and staff an opportunity to meet with UW administrators and faculty, discuss the budget request in detail, answer any questions they had and tour the campus as it relates to the capital budget.

“Every summer and fall we try and give legislators and staff an opportunity to see firsthand what is included in our request and become more familiar with our campus,” said Burkey. “We want legislators and their staff to feel welcome here and feel good about the programs they are funding.”

When the session began in January, Burkey and Evanto coordinated a series of meetings with key legislators and President McCormick regarding faculty and staff salaries, tuition flexibility and UW operating and capital budget needs. These meetings continued throughout the session as questions came up in committee and caucus discussions about the UW request. Burkey prepared and gave testimony about the low faculty and staff salaries and their affect on the quality of the University. She related the University’s situation to the 14.3 percent gap that exists between average faculty salaries at the UW and its peer institutions. Evanto and representatives from the UW Office of Research worked closely with legislators on the technology and higher education committees to brief them on the ATI and its economic impact opportunities. Vice Provost for Planning and Budgeting Harlan Patterson and his staff prepared budget analyses and tuition calculations in very tight timeframes responding to requests from legislators and committee staff. Patterson also testified in committee hearings on budget and tuition issues.

The UW requested a $50 per quarter increase in resident undergraduate tuition in order to move toward closing the 14.5 percent gap between the UW and its peers in funding per FTE student and maintaining the quality of the institution. UW Regent William H. Gates and Provost Lee Huntsman testified in both the House and Senate regarding the need for a tuition increase and the rationale behind the UW proposal. According to Burkey, their remarks were extremely effective and well-received.

Burkey and Evanto coordinated their testimony with Faculty Senate Legislative Representative JoAnn Taricani and Professional Staff Organization Representative Debbie Prince as well as testimony by other faculty, staff and student representatives in Olympia.

“Our message on faculty and staff salaries was delivered by a variety of campus voices including President McCormick, Provost Huntsman, Vice Provost Patterson and faculty and staff representatives JoAnn Taricani and Debbie Prince,” Burkey said. “We genuinely worked as a team on the salary issue this session.”

During the legislative session, Burkey and Evanto rented apartments in Olympia and resided there all week They came to campus on Monday morning for legislative briefing sessions with campus representatives, faculty senate leaders, the President, and the Provost, then headed to Olympia where they lived and worked throughout the week. They returned to campus on Friday afternoon for legislative strategy sessions with campus administrators.

“Our schedules during the session are rigorous, but we recognize the importance of our being on campus twice a week to keep people on campus informed and involved in what’s going on at the State Capitol,” said Burkey of her 120-mile commute.

Legislative briefing information was also available to people on campus this year through the Office of Government Relations regular e-mail update messages. The purpose of the updates was to keep the general campus community informed on current legislative activity that affected the University. The messages were targeted toward people who did not attend the Monday morning briefing sessions but wanted a brief summary about what was going on in Olympia.

On Feb. 11, the Office of Government Relations, in conjunction with the state’s other five public, four-year institutions, coordinated the first-ever Higher Education Day in Olympia. This event was created to strengthen awareness of the coordinated budget agreement with the other schools in the eyes of legislators, legislative staff and other government officials through alumni supporters. The day began with a legislative briefing session for alumni, followed by a luncheon featuring Co-Speakers Frank Chopp and Clyde Ballard as keynote speakers and an evening reception with Governor Gary Locke at the Governor’s Mansion. The event was attended by about 200 alumni and legislators at lunch, and about 150 alumni and legislators at the reception. Meetings with alumni and their legislators took place between events.

“Higher Education Day was an opportunity for UW alumni to join together with alumni from WSU, Eastern, Central, Western and Evergreen to show their support for higher education and their alma mater,” said Evanto. “Legislators and their staff were approached from all angles about higher education issues and realized how many of their constituents felt it was an important issue to address.”

Another alumni effort continued during the 1999 session was the Huskies for Higher Education (HHE) program. Established in 1996, HHE is an alumni network of nearly 300 volunteers who communicate regularly with their legislators on behalf of the University and its issues. This year, their support was activated on the salary issue resulting in many letters written to legislators emphasizing their concern about the problem before the budgets were released.

“Our HHE volunteers have a strong dedication to this institution,” said Evanto, coordinator of the HHE network. “Their voice makes a difference with legislators.”

On May 14, Governor Locke signed a budget that will increase the UW budget by 13.2 percent, adding $105 million to the base budget and giving the UW an average annual salary increase of 5.23 percent for its faculty and exempt staff and a 6 percent across-the-board increase for classified staff in addition to eligible salary step increases effective July 1 of each year. The 1999-01 budget includes fully funded enrollments on all three UW campuses, the ability to move ahead with a new Law School Building, funding for the renovation of Suzzallo Library, $50.1 million for UW Bothell Phase 2A, $36.4 million for UW Tacoma Phase 2A and $500,000 for UW Tacoma Phase 3 Pre-Design, $2.5 million to fund the UW portion of the ATI and $3.9 million for the Gigapop/Next Generation Internet. University Relations and Government Relations staffs are currently in the process of analyzing the session and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their efforts leading up to and implementing the communications strategy.

“We are very pleased with the recognition by the Governor and legislators of our salary problem here,” said Burkey. “The groundwork was laid before the session even began—Bob, Kevin and I reinforced what most legislators already knew by January. A lot of people contributed to our accomplishments in Olympia this year—it was really a team effort. With a few exceptions, such as failure of the Legislature to provide funding for the Life Sciences Building, we are very happy with the result. This was our best budget outcome in a decade.”

Edie’s analysis of the session contained three elements, “This legislative session is a result of a good strategy, hard work and a little luck (referring to the State tobacco settlement and good revenue forecast). “It’s wonderful to see over a year’s work come together and pay-off in Olympia.” ¶

Peggy O’Boyle Fine, Government Relations