Dear Speaker Chopp,

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We are the leaders of the United Faculty of Washington State. We represent 2200 faculty and educate 31,000 students at Washington’s Regional Comprehensive Universities.

We write to you knowing that you are working hard to find the right balance of new revenues and spending cuts in order to balance the 2010 supplemental state budget. We know that you are facing many difficult problems and facing hundreds of competing interests, and we are confident that you will ultimately do what is best for our state.

As you continue your deliberations and negotiations, we would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the importance of our state’s four-year higher education institutions. Our state universities and college are key to Washington’s economic recovery and future.

Each of the proposed supplemental budgets includes significant cuts to state appropriations to four-year higher education, ranging from a low of 3 percent to a high of 6.4 percent. We recognize that cuts are inevitable, but we hope, for the sake of our students, that when the final budget is written, the cuts to our universities and college are as low as possible. The proposed cuts are certain to have a tremendously negative impact on our students. Cuts beyond what have already been proposed will be utterly devastating, and will dramatically reduce college access and affordability.

As you know, this year’s cuts will come on top of 23 percent cuts to our state appropriations in last year’s biennial budget. These cuts were some of the deepest in the state and the nation.

These cuts were partially offset by tuition increases that will approach 30 percent in this biennium. These steep tuition increases make it imperative that you do everything you can in your current negotiations to retain funding for the Student Need Grand and Student Work Study Program. Public four-year higher education must remain public and available to all qualified students in Washington.

Again, we understand that you have a lot of tough choices to make. We stand ready to help you in any way we can.

Sincerely,

The United Faculty of Washington State

Bob Hickey, President, United Faculty of Central

Gary Krug, President, United Faculty of Eastern

Laurie Meeker, President, United Faculty of Evergreen

Steven Garfinkle, President, United Faculty of Western Washington

Bill Lyne, President, United Faculty of Washington State

Sandra Schroeder, President, American Federation of Teachers—Washington

Mary Lindquist, President, Washington Education Association