OLYMPIA – Surrounded by legislators and university officials, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill that allows Washington State University to start the second state-sponsored medical school.

But a few minutes later he hedged in answering on how much money the state should set aside for medical schools over the next two years, saying the right amount will have to be negotiated between two very different plans in competing House and Senate operating budgets.

With some 300,000 more people covered by health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and a growing population, the state needs more doctors and other medical professionals, Inslee said. Supporters applauded as he signed the bill, and at one point broke into a few lines of the WSU fight song.

University President Elson Floyd and top administrators from the WSU-Spokane campus joined a large contingent of legislators as Inslee signed a bill that he described as “ending prohibition” on a second medical school. In 1917, as part of an effort to stop an expensive turf war between the presidents of University of Washington and what was then Washington State College, the Legislature divided up many areas of study and said only UW could operate a medical school.  

The bill passed overwhelmingly in both houses, but it has no money attached to it.

Inslee had no money for a new medical school in his budget proposal released late last year. A state operating budget released by Senate Republicans Tuesday would give WSU $2.5 million to seek accreditation and $2.5 million to UW for a branch of its multi-state training program known as WWAMI located in Spokane. House Democrats’ latest budget, amended late Tuesday in the Appropriations Committee, would give WSU $2.5 million for accreditation and another $4.25 million “to provide medical education for students located in Spokane.” UW would get $9.4 million “The correct amount will be the amount we get in the final budget,” Inslee said to a question about which budget alternative he preferred. “I am relatively confident we will reach a consensus.”

Inslee described the overall Senate Republicans' budget, released Tuesday, as “a good starting point for discussions” but said he believes it falls short on providing enough money for raises for public school employees and state workers, early childhood education and state parks. He also discounted the Republicans' insistence that the state write an operating budget without new taxes, noting they have proposed an 11.7 cent increase in the gasoline tax for transportation projects in a separate spending plan.

“That bridge has already been crossed," he said. Inslee and House Democrats have proposed slightly different plans for a capital gains tax on investment profits for some investors, and the governor is proposing a new carbon tax that he says would be better than a hike in the gas tax. 

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