College projects face ax
February 13, 2007
From a robotics institute at the University of Texas at Arlington to a math and science academy at the University of North Texas, Gov. Rick Perry wants to kill nearly all of the more than $300 million that colleges receive from the state each year for special projects.
Written by Holly K. Hacker, Dallas Morning News
Students head to class at UT-Arlington
From a robotics institute at the University of Texas at Arlington to a math and science academy at the University of North Texas, Gov. Rick Perry wants to kill nearly all of the more than $300 million that colleges receive from the state each year for special projects. Called "special items" in state budget lingo, the earmarks pay for favorite projects at all 35 of the state's four-year universities and most university systems – for a total of $628 million in the current two-year budget. Mr. Perry's proposed budget would preserve just $19.5 million for projects at four campuses and the University of North Texas System. Most of the savings would go into the main pot for higher education that's given to colleges based on their student enrollment. Lawmakers have the final say on the budget, and they're likely to disagree with Mr. Perry's choices. His proposal is drawing fire from some lawmakers and questions from university leaders, though some North Texas college officials say the plan might help because this region gets a fairly paltry share of the earmarks. Ted Royer, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, said the plan will distribute money for colleges more fairly. "It's just like earmarks in Congress. You have lawmakers whose job it is to bring as much money possible back to their districts," Mr. Royer said. "That is not in the best interest of the state as a whole. What's in the best interest of the entire state is to make sure every dollar yields its greatest return possible." But some insiders say Mr. Perry is picking a battle that will divide legislators when they should focus on shared goals, like offering extra financial aid, sending more students to college and creating more top-notch research universities. "He's opening up a can of worms," said Jeremy Warren, a spokesman for state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. "It has the potential of being a bloodletting that will pit university against university, lawmaker against lawmaker. Is this really the fight we need to have on higher education this session?" Defenders say special items provide extra dollars to keep public universities in Texas competitive and get academic programs off the ground. Critics say they're pork, pet projects like museums that lawmakers give their local colleges instead of tackling statewide needs. Phil Diebel, vice president for finance and business affairs at the University of North Texas, said Mr. Perry's approach "is absolutely the correct thing to do," for the most part. He just wishes Mr. Perry would keep money for programs that have been signed into law, like UNT's math and science academy for gifted high school students. But most earmarks have been doled out with "no objective measures whatsoever," Mr. Diebel said, a process that he says has sent relatively few extra dollars to North Texas. Public colleges and universities get $3.3 billion in the current two-year budget through a formula based on the number and kind of students they teach. But they receive hundreds of millions more for special items, which include everything from research centers to museums, academic programs to new campuses. For instance, Texas A&M-Kingsville gets $1.3 million in the current budget for its Citrus Center, which covers "all aspects of citriculture" including disease, orchard design and freeze problems. Stephen F. Austin State receives $152,000 for its Center for Applied Poultry Studies and Research, money that helps pay for four new broiler houses. And the state gives UT-Austin $87,500 for a Latino World War II oral history project. But most special items aren't tied to a specific purpose. Since 1999, they've fallen under the broad category of "institutional enhancement," with few strings attached on how universities spend the money. Funding for special items has absolutely nothing to do with a campus' size – and that has fueled much of the long-running controversy. In the current two-year budget, universities receive anywhere from $9,500 per full-time student (at Texas A&M University-Texarkana) for special items to less than $300 (at Texas State University-San Marcos). Of the five campuses receiving the fewest dollars per student for special items, three are in North Texas: UNT, UTA and the University of Texas at Dallas. Mr. Perry would redistribute most of the money now used for special items to colleges using the formula based on enrollments. It's part of his new, sweeping higher education proposal that would reward campuses for students who graduate and do well on standardized tests. Just a handful of special items would remain, Mr. Royer said. UT-Austin would keep $5.7 million over the next two years to run the McDonald Observatory, one of the world's leading centers for astronomy research. Texas A&M-Galveston would hang on to $2.6 million for a training ship at the Texas Maritime Academy, one of six such academies in the country and the only one on the Gulf Coast. "You can't design a formula to fund type of that thing," Mr. Royer said. Money to start three new campuses, including UNT-Dallas, in Oak Cliff, also would remain but only for a short time, Mr. Royer said. That's a new approach. Currently, schools keep receiving seed money years after a campus is up and running. "The seed money needs to stop once you've got a tree," he said. This isn't the first attempt to slash special items. For instance, Mr. Perry tried to cut them in 2003, and a few lawmakers took a stab in 1999. Meanwhile, the special items haven't just survived – they've kept growing. The problem is that one university's pork is another university's vital project. "The devil's in the details," said former state Sen. Bill Ratliff, one of the lawmakers who challenged special items in 1999. "Once you start funding some, then all of them become special. Somebody has to decide and make it stick as to what is special, because everybody will ask for an exception." And somehow, special items have become a decidedly Texas phenomenon. In a 2003 report, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board noted that all states set aside money for specific colleges, "but the Texas Legislature does so far more than most other legislatures." The looming fight over special items is sure to fire up lawmakers and college leaders in South Texas, because universities there receive many of their extra dollars through the South Texas Border Initiative, which was started in 1989 to help them compete with older, more established schools. Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, has gone on record opposing across-the-board cuts to special items, especially ones tied to the border initiative. She said colleges in her district and nearby, including Texas A&M-International, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and UT-Pan American would be hurt. Officials at UT-Brownsville, as at many other campuses, aren't sure what to make of Mr. Perry's plan because they don't have all the details. But they speak of the benefits of special items. UT-Brownsville has requested $12 million in special items for the next two-year budget, most of it to help create new degree programs at the university, which is only 15 years old and serves an area with low college-going rates, said Rosemary Martinez, vice president of business affairs. Almost a tenth of UT-Brownsville faculty get their paychecks through special-item funds, and the dollars go to vital programs like chemistry, math and biology. "It gives students an opportunity to seek the kind of degrees that have already been available at other universities for many years," Ms. Martinez said. Ms. Martinez said that the programs funded today with special items are different from the ones a decade ago. Eventually programs become self-supporting, and schools spend the money on new needs. At UNT, Mr. Diebel said that if a university wants to start a new program, the campus will make it a priority and find a way to pay for it, without earmarks. "It does not bring an institution to its knees starting a new program," he said. "We just started a college of engineering at the University of North Texas, and we received no supplemental funding." Texas Woman's University gets 10 percent of its state money in special items, or $6.7 million a year. The funds go toward faculty salaries, a library at its Houston campus, a nutrition program and a women's health research institute. "If these items were cut, we would have to find the money in other areas of our budget" or raise tuition, spokeswoman Amanda Simpson said. College officials say the real question is whether they'll get enough extra money from the state to offset any loss in special items. UTD receives little money for special items, less than $600 per full-time student. "If it's a trade-off between a lot more money in the formula and fewer special items, we think we could cope with that," spokeswoman Susan Rogers said. Gov. Rick Perry's proposed budget would eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars paid to state universities every year for special projects. The earmarks total $628 million in the current two-year budget. Mr. Perry wants to kill all but $19.5 million. WHAT WOULD SURVIVE (This list is complete. Amounts have been rounded and are what Mr. Perry has proposed for the next two-year budget.) University of North Texas System University of Texas at Austin Texas A&M University-Galveston Tarleton State University Texas A&M University-Kingsville WHAT WOULD GO (This list is partial. Amounts have been rounded and are what the Legislative Budget Board has requested for these projects in the next two-year budget.) University of Texas-Arlington University of North Texas University of Texas at Dallas Texas Woman's University
$6 million for a new campus in Oak Cliff
$5.7 million for McDonald Observatory, one of the world's leading centers for astronomy research
$2.6 million for a training ship at Texas Maritime Academy, one of six academies in the U.S.that teaches students to run commercial ships
$1.8 for a new campus in Killeen
$3.3 for a new campus in San Antonio
$2.5 for Automation & Robotics Research Institute, which builds and studies robots and works with industry
$2.8 for Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, a program for gifted high school students who live and study at UNT for two years
$1.1 million for Center for Applied Biology, which studies ways to prevent and cure sickle-cell disease and other genetic illnesses
$334,000 for Institute for Women's Health, which promotes disease prevention and health for women and girls
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