Evergreen has $3M less next year. Here’s what that means for the college, pool
The Evergreen State College’s Board of Trustees approved a lower operating budget for its next fiscal year on Thursday that despite modest increases to tuition and fees is still about $3 million lower than its last fiscal year.
The spending plan is roughly $93 million for fiscal year 2027, down from roughly $96 million in fiscal 2026, according to the college.
It’s the continuing theme of 2026 across Thurston County as higher education, local governments and other organizations, such as library districts, all struggle with higher expenses and lower or uncertain revenue to fund operations.
South Puget Sound Community College elected to close programs and cut staff as part of its budget process, and Evergreen found itself in a similar position, most notably in its decision to close the campus swimming pool and shift textbook sales from the campus bookstore to online.
The pool closed this month.
Some of the other cuts as identified in the agenda materials for Thursday’s meeting: About 10 layoffs, including positions tied to the pool and bookstore, as well as reduced in-person class days over the summer and administrative changes that include “lower spending on travel, operations, and vendor costs, as well as organizational restructuring and the elimination of unfilled planned positions,” the agenda reads.
The academic affairs department also identified $1.57 million in reductions, including reduced adjunct faculty lines in the Masters in Teaching program and Tacoma through scheduling and workload adjustments, according to the college.
It wasn’t all bad news. The college intends to invest in student-facing services, including additional support for registration and records and a new financial aid counselor position.
Evergreen President John Carmichael provided an update on the swimming pool during Thursday’s meeting.
“We had the last event in the pool last weekend, and by shutting down the pool right now, at least for the time being, it gives us an opportunity to get in and look at systems that, frankly, we haven’t been able to actually look at ... so we will soon have a clearer understanding of the exact nature of the capital needs that will have to be addressed before it can reopen,” he said.
“We can use this time to work with the PARC Foundation and the Save the Pool coalition to figure out, after capital investments are made, what’s the plan for covering operating costs of the facilities going forward, so that’s a little bit of a tangent, but a tangent into an area I think people care a lot about.”
College officials have previously said that the pool has an annual operating cost of $250,000 and needs a near-term investment of about $1 million to make a series of repairs.
Tuition will increase
The board also approved about a 3% increase in tuition. The full-time student, who also is paying for room and board, will pay $23,574 next fall, which is up $646 from fall 2026, the tuition data shows.
Despite the increase, fall enrollment projections look positive, said Chief Financial Officer John Reed during a break in Thursday’s meeting. Specific enrollment numbers were not immediately available, although he is projecting enrollment to be higher by 10-12%.
The college currently has about 2,500 students, up from 2,100 students about four years ago, he added. The college has a five-year goal of adding 1,000 new students, Reed said.
Reed, too, said he was grateful because the state Legislature had targeted the school for $2.7 million in cuts, but through the lobbying efforts of the college and others, that was avoided.
College Trustee Ed Zuckerman echoed that sentiment as well during the meeting.
“One of the hugest accomplishments over the last 12 months was the legislative ability to claw back our $2.7 million, and we should never forget that, because we’d be in a very different place if that had not occurred,” said Zuckerman as he thanked CFO Reed and Government Relations Director Sandy Kaiser.
“That really was a spectacular gift to the board to make our jobs easier,” he said.
