Title: An act relating to tuition waivers for community college apprenticeship programs.

Brief Description: Authorizing community colleges to deduct certain payments from tuition waivers.

Sponsors: By House Committee on Higher Education (originally sponsored by Representatives Sells, Campbell, Fromhold, McCoy and Chase).

Brief History:

Higher Education: 2/22/05, 2/24/05 [DPS].

Floor Activity:

Passed House: 3/8/05, 96-2.
Passed Senate: 4/14/05, 45-0.
Passed Legislature.

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION

Majority Report: The substitute bill be substituted therefor and the substitute bill do pass. Signed by 12 members: Representatives Kenney, Chair; Sells, Vice Chair; Cox, Ranking Minority Member; Rodne, Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Buri, Dunn, Fromhold, Hasegawa, Jarrett, Ormsby, Roberts and Sommers.

Staff: Barbara McLain (786-7383).

Background:

Apprenticeship programs enable individuals to learn trades and occupations through on-the-job training and related or supplemental instruction. Apprenticeship programs are sponsored by committees made up of joint employer and labor groups, individual employers, or employer associations.

Most apprenticeship committees contract with a community or technical college to provide the related or supplemental instruction for the program. The nature of the contract varies. Some training trusts hire their own instructor but use a college facility. Others rely fully on the college for instruction, location, and administration and record-keeping. In 1997, college presidents, the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC), and the apprenticeship training community agreed that there should be established rates for contracted training and rent payments. The contract rate for 2003-05 is $2,307 per full-time equivalent (FTE) apprentice and rent is $384 per FTE.

Even if the contract calls for the college to pay the apprenticeship committee, the apprentices in the program still owe their tuition to the college. A rule established by the SBCTC prohibits a college from deducting the tuition owed on behalf of apprentices from the training contract. As a result, the college and apprenticeship committee must complete two financial transactions.

Summary of Substitute Bill:

For courses offered for the purpose of related or supplemental instruction in an approved apprenticeship program, a community or technical college may deduct tuition owed from a training contract with an apprentice organization at the request of the organization.

Appropriation: None.

Fiscal Note: Not requested.

Effective Date: The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For: This is a rather small and technical correction that would cut through the current bureaucracy of moving checks back and forth between a college and the apprentice organization. It would allow more effective and efficient management of money. Sometimes apprentice organizations require students to pay their tuition directly, so it should be clarified that this deduction could occur if the organization wanted it. The rule prohibiting this deduction was passed at a time when accounting systems were not as sophisticated as they are today.

Testimony Against: None.

Persons Testifying: Representative Sells, prime sponsor; Ed Triezenberg, Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters; and Chris Reykdal, State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.

Persons Signed In To Testify But Not Testifying: None.