Dear Friends,

The Senate announced their budget last night. It is much more friendly to the Heritage Center and the Washington State Library than the House budget (note: 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 across the board 3% salary reduction that apply to everyone in State government, and additional furloughs applied to management, 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. This is really good news!

There is a new wrinkle, 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 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.

The good news is that this locks the Heritage Center fund and fund stream in place for another year. However, this is far from the vision of the Heritage Center that we all shared, especially not having the Archives co-located with the State Library. We also have concerns about whether the building could be appropriately renovated and brought up to code for a reasonable cost. The entire GA Building would not be for the Library and Heritage Center alone. The rest would be used for the State Patrol and possibly other office space. If the renovation proves possible, at the very least the State Library would be back on campus.

Secretary of State Sam Reed is urging that you support the Senate budget proposal. It allows us to remain whole and to fight another day. Please contact your senator to urge support for the budget as written.

Obviously there are many questions yet to be answered. Thank you so much for your support!