Committee backs study of education needs on Kitsap-Olympic peninsula

OLYMPIA — The Senate Higher Education Committee gave its blessing today to a proposal to evaluate higher education needs in Kitsap, Mason, Jefferson and Clallam counties, including the need for a baccalaureate-granting institution.

The committee voted unanimously to send Senate Bill 5978 to the Senate Ways & Means Committee for further consideration.

SB 5978, sponsored by Sen. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, would direct the state’s Higher Education Coordinating (HEC) Board to assess higher education needs in the four counties and evaluate the need for a baccalaureate-granting institution.

“Our region needs family-wage jobs, and family-wage jobs require educational opportunities,” said Kilmer, the bill’s prime sponsor and the vice chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee. “We need to provide local workers with the skills our employers need to compete.”

SB 5978 would direct the HEC Board to assemble a local advisory committee, composed of local education and business leaders and local legislators, to develop preliminary and final recommendations to the Legislature by January and December, respectively, of 2008.

Representatives from Kitsap County, the City of Bremerton, the Olympic College faculty and the HEC Board testified in support of the bill.

Return to Sen. Kilmer's home page