Kraft bill aims to put college budgets online

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A bill from state Rep. Vicki Kraft regarding budget transparency for four-year colleges in Washington had a committee hearing last week, with the legislator hoping to have her bill move forward this session after being overlooked in 2019.

House Bill 2089, primarily sponsored by Kraft, R-Vancouver, was heard in the House College and Workforce Development Committee Jan. 28. The bill would require public four-year colleges and universities to submit administrative, academic and auxiliary unit budgets to the state Education Research and Data Center for public display online, according to a release from the Washington State House Republicans.

Kraft, herself a member of the committee the bill was heard in, reasoned that with college affordability a chief concern of the committee she was spurred to see what was leading to prohibitive costs, something a look at institutions’ budgets could address.

“We hear a lot in this committee about trying to help students go to college and make it more affordable. It makes me wonder why is the cost of college and universities so expensive? So that's really where this bill comes from — putting transparency in the process,” said Kraft, R-Vancouver, a member of the College and Workforce Development Committee who testified Tuesday.



“This bill would create a more transparent look at what the four-year institutions of higher education have for expenses and revenue, so we can see that and really drill down into the department level costs,” Kraft stated in the release.

Currently the ERDC compiles data about students as they move through school to the workforce, the release stated. Institutions subject to the legislation would have 60 days after budget adoption to submit the information to the ERDC, which would publish the budgets on its website. The colleges would also have to feature a link to the ERDC information on their own websites.

“This would help students, parents, legislators and other interested citizens to understand what the true cost drivers are,” Kraft stated in the release, “and it brings a further level of accountability from our higher ed institutions to those that they serve.”

The bill was initially introduced in 2019 but did not receive a hearing, according to information from the Washington State Legislature. The committee has until Feb. 7 to take action on the bill — as of press deadline there was not action scheduled for the bill.