Candidate Questionnaire

Candidate Questionnaire

To be considered for Graduate Washington’s endorsement, please complete the following questionnaire by 9:00am on Monday, June 11th. Responses should be sent to board chair Quinn Majeski at .

Higher education is the important stepping stone to providing the technical and interpersonal skills necessary to meet many jobs in our state, country, and world. While this is not the only career path, the important educational information and learning aptitudes that I received, my children received, and the students of today and tomorrow are gaining are paramount to be to successfully fulfill these jobs in a very competitive and technologically changing market.

I place higher education right beside earning learning and K-12 education in our most important responsibilities as public law makers. The key to our economic recovery is our investment in higher education. I have made this priority in the budgets that I introduced as the ranking republican on the Washington State House Ways and Means Committee, and in my successful negotiations with the Governor and leadership from other caucuses- especially in the last session as we resolved our $2 billion deficit.

The challenge is to find the best balance between a commitment of state General Fund dollars, student tuition fees, local dedicated fees, and of course research and other federal grants. The other important balance is the relationship between general taxpayer revenues, tuition and financial aid to ensure that all students have equal access to higher education regardless of income. This has been a difficult challenge in the last several years, and I believe the balance has become unbalanced with too much weight on tuition increases. I have met with all our public four year higher education presidents, several private university presidents, and many of my local community and technical college presidents, with the Governor to address this issue. I have also listened to our student body representatives and their concerns. This is a critical question and we have appointed a task force to provide us input on what that proper allocation is.

I believe I answered part of this question in my answer to the previous question. In addition I was a leader in providing our universities and colleges the flexibility in tuition rate setting in exchange for increased accountability and focus on providing the necessary tools to make our graduates employable in high demand fields like science, information technology, and math. I have also worked with the business community, including Microsoft and Boeing, to prioritize hiring our local graduates if they receive those skills. I am also on the Advisory Board for the Business School at Pacific Lutheran University, one of my alumni schools. I believe if you would ask the presidents, business managers, and lobbyists for our local higher education institutions, such as University of Washington, Pacific Lutheran University, Centralia College, and South Puget Sound Community College, they would tell you that I have been and will continue to be a strong advocate for higher education.

If re-elected, I will continue to be a strong advocate for financial aid and resources to support Student Need Grants, both public and private. I am also on the Legislative Task Force that is attempting to revitalize the GET program. The other thing is that I will be monitoring the progress on the accountability measures that were introduced in the legislation that I mentioned above. One of those important measures is student accessibility. I am also on the Executive Committee of the Joint Legislative and Audit Review Committee (JLARC) and will call for a formal audit if there are concerns about limiting access. Last, but certainly not least, is the potential for more resources.

First of all, I don’t believe it has to be exclusively academic. There are many technical career paths that also require a commitment to improvement. Certainly the retention of quality professors and educators is critical, and that means competitive compensation. I will indicate that I think we need to lessen our focus on bricks and mortor, and place the emphasis on what goes on in the classroom including up-to-date equipment, and not on whether there is a branch campus or 2 plus 2 in every legislator’s back door.

We definitely need to focus on more bachelor degrees, but I feel the key to this question is keeping abreast of where our local industry is requesting a skilled work force and then matching up our education and degrees to meet this demand. This is another of the accountability measures that was put in place by the legislation I mentioned.

Last, but certainly not least, one of the accountability measures is to improve the time to degree. Hopefully the revamped HECB, in cooperation OSPI and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, can collaboratively work together to ensure that more credits are transferable and that there are clear and cost-effective career paths. This will not only result in a better transition, it will also save money to families and the institutions of higher learning.

We passed a bill. Let’s see if it can work. If not, I will work with Rep. Haler and Rep. Seaquest, and others to see if we can make an improvement.

Let’s start with requiring at least 72 hours before we vote on the most important bills of the session, the budgets. I believe the accountability measures will also help become more efficient We passed three major reform bills last session regarding K-12 health care, pensions, and a four year balance budget amendment, of which I was one of the prime negotiators. Maybe next year we can focus on major reforms in higher education, with your help and input.