Higher Ed needs $47 million to match last year’s budget
Recent action on the Utah State Senate floor reveals that the Utah economy is recovering faster than originally projected by economists, said USU director of government relations Neil Abercrombie.
“However, even with this good news,” Abercrombie said, “there is not quite enough money to fully restore the entire $313 million in cuts approved by the Legislature in their fiscal year 2012 base budget.”
Abercrombie said Utah Sen. Lyle Hillyard gave an update on Tuesday morning on the Senate floor about the latest revenue projections for the legislature. Revenue is projected to be up by about $47 million, which is more than was originally speculated.
For fiscal year 2012 – the upcoming fiscal year – approximately $263 million more is projected for state tax revenue than fiscal year 2011. Fiscal year 2012 begins on July 1.
“Essentially it does look like they can start to restore at least some of those cuts,” Abercrombie said. “However, the challenge is there’s still not quite enough money to fully restore all of the cuts that were initiated in the base budget at the beginning of the session.”
At the beginning of the legislative session in November, a 7 percent cut to Utah higher education funding was discussed. Abercrombie said this cut was based on last year’s budget and it totaled around $47 million.
Higher education was among recipients of state funding to experience a 7 to 10 percent cut, including public education, natural resources and state parks, corrections, jails and health and human resources.
“The Democrats have come out and said, ‘We’ve completely wasted our time by cutting the budget 7 percent because now we’re just going to go back and start restoring what we’ve cut when we knew we had more money in the first place,'” Abercrombie said.
“A lot of the Republicans are saying, ‘We had to do that because we had structural imbalances and have spent a lot of one-time money for ongoing services.'”
Government relations intern Anna Harris, who observed the Senate Tuesday morning, said structural imbalances are caused by using one-time-use funding and “rainy day” funds that are set aside for economic downturns.
Harris said there is a constitutional amendment that requires the budget to be balanced at the end of every legislative session. Structural imbalances and the term “structural deficit” therefore describe the parts of the budget that still require attention.
“We’re definitely coming out of the low point,” Harris said. “The structural deficit that everyone’s really concerned about is still there. The problem is that this doesn’t necessarily clear it up all the way. It does definitely put a dent in it.”
Other ways of funding higher education programs are necessary, she said, otherwise they will still be facing cuts.
According to a Utah Higher Education Subcommittee priority list, released Feb. 17, it would take just over $54 million to fulfill the financial requirements of the nine priorities on the list. USU’s Veterinary School proposal for $1.7 million is No. 8 on the list.
“That $263 million is going to be appropriated back to public education, higher education, natural resources – health and human resources is probably the biggest one,” Abercrombie said. “They would have to give higher education about $47 million to fully fill those 7 percent cuts.”
Any money appropriated will go toward the entire higher education system in Utah as a whole, he said. Each institution will benefit equally, across the board. The legislature is not targeting specific schools or programs.
After the final decision is made on how much money will be appropriated, Abercrombie said university presidents, including USU President Stan Albrecht, will have to make the decision as to which university programs will benefit and which will suffer.
“Senator Lyle Hillyard is the co-chair of the Executive Appropriations Committee,” Abercrombie said. “He’s from Logan, represents Logan, he’s always been a great supporter and advocate for Utah State University and higher education in general.”
Representative Jack Draxler, of North Logan, is currently the vice-chair of the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee and has also been a supporter for USU, he said. Kurt West of south Cache Valley is also on the committee.
The Executive Appropriations Committee manages financial decisions for all state-level funding and the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee advocates for higher education and decides where money will be appropriated after it is handed down by the executive committee.
“They’re the ones who first approved the 7 percent cut, the subcommittee,” Abercrombie said. “Then they also made some recommendations to the executive committee how, if there’s money there, this is how we should restore the 7 percent.”
Abercrombie said he is hopeful that with the additional money announced in Tuesday’s Senate floor proceedings, the Legislature will move closer to the Governor’s initial fiscal year 2012 budget recommendation and at least fund higher education at the 2011 level.
– dan.whitney.smith@aggiemail.usu.edu