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Febrary 6, 2009

KU agenda moves forward as budget negotiations continue

Amidst shrinking budget resources for state programs, Kansas lawmakers have spent the first few weeks of the legislative session searching for the least disruptive ways to cut state budgets. For the current fiscal year which began in July, a total of roughly $300 million represents the shortfall which must be made up through budget cuts, program delays, etc.

For KU and other state universities, the cuts in current year operations will likely be between 4 and 4.5 percent. This is slightly more than the 3 percent cut that has already been implemented at KU.

If state revenues continue to fall below estimates each month, more hard choices will face lawmakers. Clearly, additional spending cuts are on the legislature's agenda as they craft the FY 2010 budget. Senate Ways and Means Committee members will begin looking at the higher education budgets next week. In the end, no firm decisions regarding the KU budget for FY 2010 will be made until late this spring as lawmakers near an early May adjournment.

KU officials were active at the statehouse advocating for policies to enhance university enrollment and add efficiencies to various operations. HB 2007 was heard by the House Higher Education Committee, chaired by Rep. Terrie Huntington. This cutting-edge proposal would allow the Kansas Board of Regents to consider a broad range of innovative student recruitment proposals from KU and other state universities.

The university is looking at an attractive proposal that would be useful in recruiting qualified students to KU who already have a family connection to the university and who may be more likely to remain in Kansas upon graduation. The proposed "Jayhawk Generations Tuition Plan" could be instituted for students whose parents or grandparents graduated from KU and who meet certain academic requirements. The reduced tuition offered to these students would remain higher than in-state tuition, so as not to subsidize out-of-state students with Kansas tax dollars, thus the financial underpinnings of the proposal remain sound.

Finally, Senate Education Committee members heard testimony on SB 9 which is designed to eliminate costly delays in construction projects at KU and other universities when non-state monies are used. The measure is a major step forward in the university's ongoing efforts to identify counter-productive, outdated bureaucratic mandates and replace them with more efficient and cost-saving processes. Mostly recently, the state allowed KU to do its own purchasing program and the move saved KU roughly $2 million. Those are impressive numbers and the kind of policy options lawmakers have come to expect from KU.