A snapshot of USU’s Legislative wrap up

The Utah State Legislature wrapped up on March 10 by allocating money for Utah State University for the 2017 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

There were positive signs in the budget for USU and overall for higher education, said Neil Abercrombie, the director of government relations.

Abercrombie said it is great representing USU on Capitol Hill each year because so many legislators genuinely appreciate the university’s value. He said that recognition comes in part because President Stan Albrecht built a legacy of working with the legislators.

“They like him, they trust him and he’s had a huge amount of political impact on the state of Utah,” Abercrombie said. “We are in a great spot because of President Albrecht.”

$38 million for the new Life Science Building

The new building will be a learning space for a wide variety of programs and departments that study life, including cell biology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology and ecology, among others.

Maura Hagan, the dean of the College of Science, said in an email to the Statesman that the groundbreaking for the building will be about a year from now. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2018 and it will be ready for classes before the spring semester of 2019.

The Life Science Building will feature a set of 21st century state-of-the-art classrooms and teaching labs. The new building will address the shortage of undergraduate science teaching space and allow the college to better meet the needs of the growing population of more than 1,600 students each year.

“We currently have two biology teaching labs operating well over capacity,” she said.

She said such severely limited capacity has caused unaccommodated students to fall behind an entire year, as they struggle to complete prerequisites needed to progress in their degree programs and complete graduation requirements.

$5 million for system-wide performance funding

Depending on the performance as a university, money is given back depending on how well USU does. That is system-wide, meaning it is really allocated to the system office and there are metrics of performance, Abercrombie said. But he said this allocation is one small step forward, because he hoped to get more performance funding.

$1.2 million for market demand programs and the graduate initiative

The Legislature allocated $5 million across the state and $1.2 will go across to provide new higher education opportunities for USU. The funding goes toward investing in workforce needs like job development and providing degrees related to local industries, said Abercrombie.

$950,000 to support USU’s extension water conservation research initiative

The allocation will go toward USU’s partnership with The Center for Water Efficient Landscaping. The organization searches for efficient water usage by assisting with water checks, water maps and landscaping issues.

Abercrombie said he is really excited about the funding for water quality research because it demonstrates just how much the legislators trust USU’s research capacity.

“Really, this was a bipartisan issue,” he said. “They need better research and better communication how Utah can be wise water users.”

$250,000 for continued air quality research at the Uintah Basin Bingham Research Center

The money provides money for the next seven years for USU to carry out air quality research in the Uintah Basin, said Seth Lyman, the director of the Bingham Center air quality research team. That money allows the team to conduct projects like measuring organic compounds concentrations and improving computer models that simulate air quality.

“The research is important to the physical health and well-being of Uintah Basin residents,” Lyman said.

There are many unanswered about wintertime ozone and how to best control it, he said. The Uintah Basin is very rural, but it also has a robust oil and gas industry. The emissions from the oil and gas industry make up the majority of ozone-forming pollutants emitted into the Basin’s atmosphere.

Lyman said he doesn’t like to distinguish between research happening in Vernal and research happening in Logan.

“We are one university, and high-quality, high-impact research happening at any of USU’s campuses benefits the whole organization,” he said.

$100,000 for expansion of the USU Assistive Technology Lab in Roosevelt

The money will go toward outfitting the building with equipment that helps people with disabilities function in their day-to-day lives, whether that means fixing electric wheelchairs or welding an arm rail in someone’s house, said Derrik Tollefson, the Interim Dean and Executive Director of the Uintah Basin campus. Also, the assistive technology lab offers those services at a fairly low cost.

“Think of it as a tailor shop, suit that doesn’t fit and donate that and cater to make it fit someone else,” he said.

Tollefson said it is really exciting to bring something like this to the community for the first time.

“[Vernal] is a long way from metropolitan location and we don’t have this service available, but we still have a lot of people with disabilities and we can provide them with the resources,” he said.

A two percent merit-based compensation increase plus an additional one percent health benefits

Compensation is one that is pushed hard for and it does the best they can for salary increase for our faculty and staff, Abercrombie said.

— morgan.pratt.robinson@gmail.com