recession

The recession and the giant hole in the state budget it has created may give the state’s public universities the opportunity they’ve been looking for – the ability to raise tuition without the Legislature’s approval.

Lawmakers have firmly held onto that power for years, against hard lobbying by university administrators. Lawmakers have rightly seen it as a way to keep tuition more affordable, particularly at the "elite" public institutions including the University of Washington.

But a proposal to allow universities to raise tuition on their own is gaining momentum, reports Nick Perry of the Seattle Times, largely because of the $2.6 billion state budget shortfall. The governor has urged “tuition flexibility,” and a UW-backed measured to allow tuition-setting authority is “gaining support of some key lawmakers.”

Sen. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, who chairs the Higher Education & Workforce Development Committee, said he expects to file a bill this week that would give the state's six universities the ability to set resident undergraduate tuition rates… A draft of Kilmer's bill would limit undergraduate tuition increases to 14 percent in any given year and to a long-term annual average of 10 percent.

Recent tuition battles in other western states have reached new heights. In California, students occupied buildings and were hauled away in handcuffs after they were arrested protesting 32 percent hikes implemented to help patch hikes in that state's budget.

Our good friends at grist.org commissioned this story today. Hope you like it:

By Robert McClure

SEATTLE—You could tell by the way Obama administration officials pep-talked a roomful of clean-energy businesspeople today that the White House realizes it hasn’t convinced Americans that “tackling climate change = ending the recession.”

Again and again EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Energy Undersecretary Kristina Johnson pounded on the jobs issue at a pre-Copenhagen climate talks event designed to showcase how energy efficiency, the smart grid and renewable energy can boost employment rates.

“We’re hearing a whole host of reasons today to support American clean energy. There are national security reasons. There are environmental reasons, and there are public-health reasons,” Jackson said. “But perhaps the most compelling reason at this moment and in this place is the economy.”

The very setting of the clean energy forum fairly screamed “JOBS!” It was a nearly-finished “innovation center” that is leasing space for startups, built by McKinstry Co. beside the firm’s south Seattle offices. McKinstry is all about energy efficiency in buildings (which is where something like a third to two-fifths of our energy use occurs, depending on how you’re counting).

And, get this: Even as the recession roared ahead into high gear earlier this year, McKinstry announced plans to hire 500 people.

That can happen more, Jackson said.

There was the Detroit hotel and restaurant owner who tried to kill himself.

Then there was the Maryland political analyst who lost her $760,000 home to foreclosure. Aaron Heideman found her living in a Toyota Camry.

And who could forget the guy running a food bank in Georgia who said he was going into debt at the rate of $1,000 a month to help his neighbors?

Those are just three of the hundreds of stories Aaron Heideman, aka The Man In A Van, collected on a cross-country odyssey to hear from Americans, in their own words, how their lives have been affected by the recession.

“How has the recession affected you?” A sign atop his van asks.

“Tell me your story,” beckons the van’s side.

Laid off from his job at a paint store in southern Oregon, Heideman decided he would do a conceptual art project, driving his pencil-yellow Dodge van through California, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida, up the Eastern Seaboard and through New England to Grand Rapids, Mich.

[caption id="attachment_6365" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Heideman outside a Wallingford laundromat"][/caption]

That’s where he entered himself in the annual ArtPrize competition in September, hoping to win the $250,000 prize.

He didn’t. So he recently moved to Seattle, where he went to art school and lived for some years. That’s where I caught up with him.

A South Florida news reporter who met Heideman in the summer described him as “not-surprisingly scruffy” because the bearded, sandal-clad artist was living in his van. This week the clean-shaven 29-year-old was dressed in a light-blue button-down shirt, neatly pressed grey slacks and shiny black shoes. He’s job hunting.

The economic fallout continues to worsen for those struggling under the double whammy of crippling debt and job loss. Bankruptcy filings are surging across the country. In Utah, Steven Oberbeck of the Salt Lake Tribune reports filings were up a "staggering 62 percent" compared with the same period a year ago. Nationally, more than 1 million people have filed for bankruptcy protection, the most since 2005.

In addition to usual bankruptcy drivers - including high consumer debt, or unpaid medical bills, bankruptcy courts are also hearing from individuals who had personally guaranteed loans to businesses, which then soured.

In the realm of economic indicators, bankruptcy filings aren't in the "canary in the coalmine" category. They're more like the rescue workers who come in after the mine's collapsed to see what's salvageable - a trend worth watching.

Carol Smith

There are a couple of faintly hopeful signposts on the western economy today. The biggie - the California budget doesn't look so bad.  Despite regular tidings of gloom and doom, comes now a glimmer of good cheer. Buoyed perhaps by a resurgent stock market and other signs the recession is on its way out, reports the San Jose Mercury News, the state's revenue and spending projections "ought to hold up to at least mid-January, and maybe even beyond," according to analysts and economists. Woo-hoo.

 However, "the glad tidings may be temporary," writes Merc reporter Denis C. Theriault, who notes the deficit for next year is already estimated at $7.4 billion.

Still, it's the first time this year when when deficit slashing wasn't the chief occupation in the state capital. And it's good news for state parks in California. Remember those 100 parks that were going to be shut down because the state simply didn't have the money to operate them? Well, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now says he won't have to shut them down, but he is going to stop buying equipment to maintain them and lay off many of the employees who staff them. His decision also came after activists launched campaigns to keep the parks open, and a Sacramento environmental group posted a memo from state park attorneys warning that taxpayers could be on the hook for breaching park concession contracts if parks were closed.

There is more upside to the bad news of state budgets. In Colorado, where the state is facing a $318 million shortfall, some social justice advocates see the the draconian cuts the state is forced to make as a way to face up to some real problems in the state prison system. That has already happened in California.