Monday, June 29, 2009
More money from the federal stimulus funds is going toward tuition assistance at the University, but it comes at the cost of deferred maintenance.
The Board of Regents voted 5-4 Thursday to apply two-thirds of the money received in the stimulus package for Fiscal Year 2010 to deferred maintenance, saving one-third for flexibility for the University along with the other six Regents schools to apply toward scholarships and tuition assistance. The Regents also voted to keep the same allocations for the 2009 fiscal year, reversing their decision earlier this month to make 100 percent of those funds available to deferred maintenance.
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Board of Regents allocates stimulus funds for deferred maintenance and tuition assistance.
The total allocations from stimulus funds available for all six Regents’ schools for 2009 & 2010: $39.8 million
The University’s portion for the two years: Deferred maintenance: $10,131,724 Tuition assistance: $5,663,449
Deferred maintenance, or maintenance projects that need to be done but have not been started, are put on a list by the University that the Regents use to determine additional state funding.
Regent Christine Downey-Schmidt proposed that the board consider 2009 funds in the stimulus money allocations. She said she didn’t understand why the Fiscal Year 2009 money had to all be tied to deferred maintenance.
“I just started looking at the numbers,” Downey-Schmidt said. “This gives a few more dollars for the University to distribute to students.”
The board committed $7.7 million of Fiscal Year 2009 money to the six Regents schools last month, with $2,073,228 coming to the University. One third of that would mean $691,076 would be available for the University to apply toward scholarships and tuition mitigation.
Regents president Reginald Robinson, who did not have a vote, said he did not want to see the board stray from attention to deferred maintenance, which it has identified as an important issue.
“We had to deal with incredible fallout and misrepresentation about what goes on in crumbling classrooms.” Robinson said.
Regent Dan Lykins, who voted against the split between tuition and scholarship assistance and deferred maintentance, said school presidents needed even more flexibility on how to use stimulus funds in this time of state budget cuts and rising tuition.
“I think we need to give them discretion,” Lykins said. “The money were talking about is a drop in the bucket.”
Regents chair Donna Shank, who also voted against the split, said the while this federal government money was helpful, schools needed to guard against making themselves dependent on it.
“You don’t want to build it into your budgets because it’s going to go away,” Shank said.
— — Edited by Ross Stewart
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