The Senate announced its budget Tuesday night. It is much more friendly to the Heritage Center and the Washington State Library than the House budget.  (An amendment that passed in House Ways and Means removed the State Library and Legacy Project from a proposed heritage, arts and culture agency but maintained a proposed 22% cut to the Library.) 

Other than an across the board 3% salary reductions that applies to everyone in State government, and additional furloughs applied to management staff, no additional cuts were applied to the Library. The Senate budget also left the Heritage Center fund and funding stream intact within the Office of the Secretary of State.

However, the Senate budget proposes a “pre-design” study to be completed by December, 2011 to see if it is feasible to renovate the current GA Building to hold the State Library and Heritage Center. The State Archives is not included in that proposal and in fact it is suggested that the Archives could acquire the additional storage space it needs in the old Dept. of Information Services Building (OB 2) instead of moving the Library and Archives together in the “renovated” GA Building. If the change is deemed feasible, the plan would be to get authorization to move ahead during the 2012 Legislative session.

This secures the Heritage Center fund and keeps fund stream in place for another year within the Office of the Secretary of State.  However, it is far from the Secretary of State’s vision of the Heritage Center, especially not having the State Archives co-located with the State Library.  I also raises questions such as whether the building could be appropriately renovated and brought up to code for a reasonable cost. Besides the State Library and Heritage Center the State Patrol and possibly other state agencies would share the building. If the renovation proves possible, at the very least, the State Library would be back on campus. 

Secretary of State Sam Reed supports the Senate budget proposal as written. It allows us to remain whole.