Three percent. That’s the number you’ve heard. The reality is something more like ten to fourteen percent.

When Governor Gregoire released her budget proposal last week, her staff sent a spreadsheet to higher education stakeholders describing the net cut to state universities as about 3%. They arrived at this number by cutting state appropriations to universities by between 20-26% and then adding back in the governor’s proposed 9-11% tuition increases.

These details are confirmed in section 603 and sections 606-611 of the governor’s proposed operating budget appropriations bill. And the idea of a net 3% cut to universities, especially after the budget battering we’ve taken in the last two years, has fueled the illusion that the governor’s budget protects public four-year higher education.

But alas, we’re not living in a world created by Lewis Carroll, so just saying something three times won’t make it true.

When we read further down in the appropriations bill we find the things the governor’s staff had to ignore in order to arrive in the fantasy world where the net cut to universities is 3%. The two biggest are the retirement contributions that the state would punt to the universities and the 3% work reduction the governor has demanded of all state employees.

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Figure those back in and the cut to the universities jumps up to close to 14%. If you don’t mind sentencing university workers to poverty in their golden years and you drop the retirement contributions, you’re still left with a cut of more than 10%.

But you can’t dodge the 3% work reduction.

That work reduction is better known in the governor’s office and the Seattle Times as the 3% salary reduction the governor negotiated with those rich, greedy state employees. But while it will be a pay cut, it will also be a work reduction—3% less pay for 3% less work. And the governor, in her budget proposal, has extended that work/pay reduction to all state agencies, including the universities.

The net result of all this is that, on top of the 20-26% cuts that the governor proposes to university state appropriations, she is also taking back 3% of the salary budget for all university employees. And, even after you add back in the tuition increases, that more than triples the cut to the universities.

Budget surprises buried in back pages and footnotes are, of course, nothing new. But this particular shell game is going to have very serious consequences for our students and their families. In a letter to university presidents, Governor Gregoire declared that her budget proposal would “maintain the quality of our institutions without reducing access.” With all due respect to the governor, that’s nonsense.

If the governor’s budget proposal were enacted, the universities would be forced to cut 10-14% more from budgets that have already been reduced to 1991 levels. The result will be, can only be, either fewer students educated or a reduction in the quality of the education.

And that’s the real danger and irresponsibility of the governor’s budget shell game. We can’t keep cutting higher ed by double digit percentages and claim that everything will stay the same. It can’t. It won’t. We should be forthright with our students and their families about how they will be paying more and getting less.

The difficult circumstances we find ourselves in make it all the more imperative that we have honest conversations about the consequences of the choices we make. The real cuts to universities in the governor’s budget proposal are at least 10%, probably more.

Come January, everybody in Olympia needs to start from that reality.