Volume 59, Issue 9  - October 16, 2006

Budget: 2nd in a series
University submits funding request  
By Isis Lopez
Staff Writer  

The university has submitted its initial Legislative Appropriations Request of $47.7 million for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 to the Governor’s Office of Budget, Planning and Policy and the Legislative Budget Board.

“The university prepares a request to the [Texas] Legislature for what we need to operate,” Vice President for External Affairs Antonio N. Zavaleta said in an interview with The Collegian. “It is based upon our strategic thinking of where we’re headed.”

The University of Texas at Brownsville’ current budget is $129,093,219. Texas Southmost College’s total budget is $53 million, of which $42 million goes to UTB. TSC keeps 10.9 percent of its budget.

The university is requesting $25.1 million in exceptional items:

--$1,481,790 to restore a 10 percent reduction in funds by the state;

--$5,893,676 to obtain a tuition revenue bond retirement debt service for the planned science and technology learning center;

--$2,217,664 to provide additional funding to cover enrollment growth and possible inflation;

--and $3,487,190 for the lease of TSC facilities.

Priority 1        

Zavaleta said the state has asked its agencies to reduce their funding requests by 10 percent; the first priority requests the recovery of the 10 percent.

That’s enormous hardship, so what we’re asking, our highest priority, is for them to restore that amount,” he said.

Rosemary Martinez, vice president for Business Affairs, said the reduction has been required for the last three sessions.

“If we don’t get that 10 percent back … we would have less money for facilities and less money for personnel, less money for faculty and staff,” Martinez said. “So, part of the process … [is] to explain and justify your request.”

The university’s justification states that “State General Revenue plays a significant role in financing the core mission of the institution and it is important that the General Revenue be maintained and not reduced.”

Priority 1 funds the workers’ compensation insurance, the lease of TSC facilities, the Texas Center for Border Economic Development, the K-16 collaboration in the UTB service area, and institutional enhancement.

Priority 2

Zavaleta said the university received authorization for the bond to construct the science and technology building in the last legislative session.

Priority 2 would provide a debt service for the bond.

“What we’re asking there is that the state appropriate the money that we need to pay off the annual payment on the debt for the building,” Martinez said.

Zavaleta said the university is borrowing $33,800,000 from the bond market to construct the building.

Martinez said the university is in the process of hiring architects for that bond project.

The university’s justification states: “The debt service calculations use the assumption of a 6 percent interest rate, 20-year-level term repayment period with an assumed insurance date of Aug. 15, 2007.”

Priority 3

“This request is asking the state to make sure that there’s additional dollars allocated to cover growth in enrollment during that period of time,” Martinez said about the third request. “Also, asking that adequate dollars be allocated to cover inflation. …

A lot happens in two years.”

The request funds instruction and operations and infrastructure.

Priority 4

Zavaleta said that under the partnership between UTB and TSC, the university pays the college to lease its facilities.

“UTB uses the facilities for instruction and for administration … and the state considers a formula … to provide sufficient funding for the lease of physical facilities and physical properties,” he said.

The Science and Engineering Technology Building, the Life and Health Sciences Building and the Education and Business Complex belong to UTB.

“Everything else, excluding the Student Union, which was built by students, and the bookstore, belongs to Texas Southmost College,” Zavaleta said.

He said TSC uses the money it receives in rent to pay for maintenance.

The request states the lease of facilities is provided because of the space deficit of 176,306 square feet.

Zavaleta said the space deficit is determined through a formula.

“For every student, you need so many square feet,” he said. “So, if you have 10 students, then it would be 10 times that and that’s how many square feet you have, and if you have 15,000 students, like we do, then it’s going 15,000 times that and that’s the space that you need. In Texas, that’s what the Legislature has agreed [on].

He said the university has one of the highest space deficits in the state because it is a growing university.