12/19/07 Governor's supplemental budget ignores WSU's ag request

Washington Ag December 19, 2007 Washington State University was requesting Governor Gregoire include 3.8 million dollars in her supplemental budget for Emerging Global Animal Health & Agriculture issues. Gregoire revealed her budget request to the legislature yesterday and; Ganders: "We were disappointed in the Governor's budget with respect to agriculture. We had two key proposals with regard to agriculture and she did not fund either one of those." That' Larry Ganders who is an assistant to WSU's president in Olympia. He says also not included in the Governor's budget was 7.4 million dollars for design money for a veterinary medical research building. Ganders does say there are some members of the legislature who strongly support WSU's ag request. Ganders: "They have encouraged us to keep going ahead with our request. We won't do that with all our requests but in the case of the agricultural ones president Floyd has indicated this is a priority and we are going to continue to press to get them funded in this session." Governor Gregoire is asking the Legislature for approval and annual funding of over five-million dollars for agreements she has signed with the Spokane and Colville Indian Tribes which will facilitate delivery of Columbia River water to deep well irrigators in the Odessa Sub-Area. . I'm Bob Hoff.