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Board hearing highlights shrinking capital share and rising campus operating costs

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges · April 8, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Board presentations warned that state bond capacity and rising utility and compliance costs are squeezing capital projects; staff said the system has limited funds for major projects and described intermediate projects, emergency funds, and facility-condition surveys used to prioritize repairs.

Board staff and college presidents presented a capital-budget overview and warned that rising costs and shifts in state bond allocations are reducing the share of capital funding available to the college system.

Capital budget director Gerald Jennings told the board that capital appropriations are project-specific and that the system’s capital appropriation this biennium is just under $400 million versus an operating budget roughly $2.4 billion. He detailed how capital sources are split (state bonds historically provide the majority) and reiterated that the legislature moved $72,000,000 of student building fees into the…

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