Meeting the Requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act

My office, Procedures, Records, and Forms (PR&F), is responsible for managing administrative policies and procedures for Washington State University (WSU). Administrative policies and procedures at a state institution like ours involve both policies and procedures that require just an internal review process and those that require internal review along with public notification and public comment.

Like all state higher education institutions, Washington state colleges and universities are regulated according to the laws passed by the legislature and by administrative rules put in place to enact applicable legislation. The federal government and each state in the U.S. have passed administrative procedures acts, which provide requirements for establishing, updating, and repealing administrative rules to enact legislation and operate federal or state agencies. In the state of Washington the laws passed by the legislature are codified in the Revised Code of Washington (RCW), and the administrative rules are codified in the Washington Administrative Code (WAC).

Generally, actions that will or may impact members of the public or customers are established as WAC rules. Each state of Washington agency has their own "Title" in the WAC, which the agency is responsible for establishing and updating in accordance with the requirements of the Washington Administrative Procedures Act (RCW 34.05). The act provides an exception for Washington higher education institutions to allow establishment of academic and administrative policies that involve admissions standards, academic advancement, graduation, the granting of degrees, employment relationships, and/or fiscal processes without going through a public review process.

WSU's WAC rules (WAC Title 504) include policies that affect student living groups, standards of conduct for students, student education records, health and safety regulations, facility use rules (both those involving free speech activities and those not involving free speech activities), parking and traffic regulations, board of regents meetings, practice and procedure for adjudicative hearings, library policies, course materials, public records, state environmental policy act rules, and small works contracting. Additionally, the Washington legislature recently moved responsibility for administering the state's renewable energy system incentive program from the state Department of Revenue to WSU's Energy Program, which required us to establish a new chapter of administrative rules to govern this program.

Our internal administrative policies are prepared, reviewed, and approved in accordance with our Policy on Policies (Executive Policy EP5). In accordance with RCW 34.05, the process for WAC policies, rules, and regulations involves internal administrative review and approval, public notification, and except in limited cases, public hearings, as well as adoption action by our Board of Regents. Exception: Our Regents delegated authority to the WSU President to adopt parking rules.

Due to the strict deadlines for filing public notifications, required waiting times to allow for public notification or comment at each stage of the process, and the limited number of Regents meetings available for adoption actions, a normal WAC amendment process takes about seven to eight months. Administrative determination to make changes based on public comments can add another three to six months to this length of time. We work with the state Code Reviser's Office, which is responsible for managing and publishing all proposed changes in the Washington State Register (WSR), and all adopted changes in the WAC.

When a WSU administrative unit notifies us that they want to make changes to the WACs, my office first asks for an idea of when they'd like the rules to become effective. We then work backwards to run a timeline that indicates dates for the necessary Regents' adoption action, the public hearing and filing deadlines, and the review process deadlines for the internal review and approval of the rules language. (We also include deadlines for the applicable vice president to provide notifications and materials and present the proposed changes to the Regents for applicable future action and action items.)

The WAC process requires a general summary preproposal notification statement to the public. Then in order to file the amendment proposal we must have all of the specific rules language completely prepared and approved internally up through the administrative chain of command to include the University President. The amendment proposal is presented to the Regents for adoption action after the public hearing and end of the public commenting period.

I'm sure many of you experience the need to push your reviewers to respond to policy/procedures drafts. Add in the need to complete each stage of the review process by strict deadlines in order to meet public notification filing requirements, and you'll find you really need to increase your level of "squeaky wheelness." We've found that having our legal counsel, the State Attorney General's Office—WSU Division, on our side throughout the development and review process for WACs is of great assistance with ensuring reviewer responses to WAC drafts.

WSU's WACs process was transferred to my office from our Office of Finance and Administration back in 2004. Since then we've learned a great deal about state requirements for processing such changes, as well as holding and documenting public hearings and comments. WAC processing is definitely a juggling act, with many different "balls in the air" to keep track of at the same time.

How are publicly-reviewed policies, rules, and regulations handled at your public institution? Does your administrative policies office manage this process, or do you have a separate office that facilitates these changes?

Even if you don't work for a public university or college, you might find it interesting to check into how publicly-reviewed policies and rules are managed at the state or even federal level. I know that my experiences working with WSU's WACs have made me much more aware of the strictures that all public agencies must follow in order to change their operating rules.