• New Local Leaders Make Regional Connections
• PSRC Developing Supplemental Budget and Work Program
• Call for Executive Board Appointments
• Save the Date!
• Educational Attainment in the Central Puget Sound Region
• Back Issues

Aided by strong coffee, multiple PowerPoint presentations and a thick folder of handouts, 40 newly elected officials from the region gathered together in December at the University of Washington to learn more about regional issues that affect their communities. Participants came from all four counties, representing a diverse mix of suburbs, rural small towns, larger cities, and the Port of Seattle.

The Regional Connections workshop is offered every two years by the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, Sound Transit, and the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs to introduce newly elected officials to regional challenges and engage them in the actions of the three regional agencies.

Facilitator David Harrison, a senior lecturer at the Evans School of Public Affairs, congratulated the new electeds for seeking public office and commented that their days of grocery shopping without being buttonholed by constituents are over.

Participants heard presentations on the state of the region from staff of PSRC, Sound Transit and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, followed by a facilitated discussion with the executive directors and veteran elected officials who serve on the boards of the three agencies, including Tacoma Councilmember Bill Evans, Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, Auburn Mayor Pro Tem Sue Singer, and Everett Councilmember Brenda Stonecipher. The veteran officials also lunched with the newly electeds to discuss the barriers and benefits of working together regionally.

The newly electeds considered three topics posed by Harrison: how to overcome obstacles to working together, a "sleeper" issue the region should be paying attention to, and what regional problem they'd fix if they suddenly had $10 million to spend. Here's what they reported back:

For more information or copies of workshop materials, contact Anne Avery at 206-464-7079, aavery@psrc.org.

Transportation, economic development, and growth management emerged as the top three most important issues to the newly elected officials in an interactive polling session with Stuart Elway. The group predicted affordable housing would be the most significant issue 10 years from now.

The process to develop the supplemental budget and work program is now underway. The draft supplemental budget updates the Regional Council's transportation, economic and growth planning activities for the fiscal year 2007. The Operations Committee, chaired by Mayor Pro Tem Sue Singer, is overseeing the process.

The Executive Board will consider the budget at its February meeting and will recommend the action for the General Assembly at its annual meeting in March. Action by the Assembly in March gives the agency time to obtain grants necessary to fund the budget at the beginning of the new fiscal year, July 1, 2006. For more information, call Mark Gulbranson at 206-464-7524.

Call for Executive Board Appointments

PSRC members are being asked to appoint their representatives and alternates to the Executive Board and Operations Committee this month. The 32-member Executive Board makes important decisions on transportation funding, growth and economic planning, as well as other responsibilities of the Puget Sound Regional Council between meetings of the General Assembly. The Operations Committee, composed of 10 members selected from the Executive Board, reviews and makes recommendations to the Executive Board on the budget and work program, and on contracts and other financial and personnel issues.

For a listing of the current representatives on the Executive Board and Operations Committee, or for other information, call Sylvia Nelson at 206-464-7518.

Central Puget Sound is markedly more literate and degreed than most other metropolitan regions in the U.S., but a comparatively high percentage of local kids are not graduating from high school within four years, and the region isn't producing enough bachelor's degrees to meet employer demand.

Seattle was recently named the most literate city in the U.S., rising above Minneapolis, Washington D.C., Atlanta, and San Francisco.¹ More than 35 percent of people who live in the central Puget Sound region hold a bachelor's degree. The region has the third highest percentage of bachelor's degrees per capita in the nation.

While central Puget Sound ranks high in the number of people who have college degrees, the region ranks relatively low among the states in granting bachelor's degrees, especially in science and engineering. Many of the region's high tech employers are importing highly educated employees from outside the region and the U.S. For example, the state's colleges supply only 52 percent of projected demand for computer programmers.

Washington ranks 39th among the 50 states in the percentage of students graduating from high school. Just 66 percent of students graduated statewide in 2001, according to a nationwide survey by the Manhattan Institute. The Washington State Office of Public Instruction uses a different method for estimating graduation rates and shows a higher graduation rate --72 percent -- for the same survey year. Estimating graduation rates is imprecise given that the whereabouts of some students are unknown -- they may have moved to another district, dropped out, graduated early, or taken extra time to graduate.

For information on this Trend or to learn more about the Prosperity Partnership's efforts to develop a higher education reform proposal, contact Angela Kerwin at
206-587-5061, akerwin@psrc.org.
¹America's Most Literate Cities, http://www.ccsu.edu/amlc/

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