This will give more of our students-some 68% of whom rely on financial aid-access to this financial support. SB1 included an increase of $110 million over the biennium in statewide funds for these grants. The Texas Grants program has a clear impact on the retention and graduation rates of our Roadrunners. Efforts by the higher education community to restore these cuts were unsuccessful. Those cuts were the starting point for UTSA’s base budget in this biennium.
#Texas legislative session 2021 full#
Most Texas institutions joined us in advocating for full or partial restoration of the 5% budget cuts that were put in place in June 2020 by Governor Abbott.
Senior Vice President Mendez, Provost and Senior Vice President Espy and I will send a follow-up message in the next month or so about the implications of this net funding increase and other components of our FY21-22 budget preparations.
Our thanks go also to Governor Abbott for his ongoing support for higher education and to the other SB1 conferees and members who kept funding enrollment growth at the forefront of their discussions. We are grateful to Lieutenant Governor Patrick, Speaker Phelan, Chairman Nelson and Chairman Bonnen for supporting a nearly full restoration of the formula funding rates during conference. My thanks go to the many who contributed their energies to this important work, including Provost and Senior Vice President Kimberly Andrews Espy, as well as our deans, vice provosts, department chairs, faculty and staff in Academic Affairs. I really want to emphasize that our collective efforts to carefully manage planned enrollment growth and weighted semester credit hour production resulted in these positive funding outcomes for UTSA. This represents one of the higher increases across all 37 general academic institutions.Įfforts to grow weighted semester credit hours during the counting year were instrumental in this dramatic increase. Thanks to that teamwork and the diligence of many of our elected leaders, this session brought some positive outcomes for UTSA that will bolster our trajectory toward our destinations as a model for student success and a great public research university.īased on this year’s formula funding process and the additional funding allocated by the SB1 conferees, UTSA will receive a formula general revenue appropriation of $228.2 million over the biennium-an increase of $32.3 million (16.5%) over the last biennium. Texas’s six public higher education systems and 37 general academic institutions collaborated closely to advocate for increases to state appropriations formula funding and several of the other items mentioned below. Further, Senior Vice President for Business Affairs Veronica Salazar Mendez and her colleagues Tammy Anthony and Paula Pierson worked with many to respond to over 170 inquiries from UT System regarding proposed legislation over the course of the session. As our new Associate Vice President for Government Relations based in Austin, Jason facilitated engagement with our elected officials and their teams-as well as state agency staff-on almost a daily basis. Jason Hassay, Albert Carrisalez, Rod McSherry and Carlos Martinez worked closely with me and their UT System counterparts to advocate for UTSA and for higher education. I am grateful for the work of our governmental relations teams here at UTSA and at UT System. As Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar provided updates on the status of the Texas economy, these concerns lessened somewhat.
#Texas legislative session 2021 update#
Now that the 87th Texas Legislative session has come to a close, I’m writing to provide an update on some of the major outcomes from the session for UTSA, particularly around the state budget passed via Senate Bill 1 ( SB1) and recently signed by Governor Abbott.īy way of context, the Legislature convened this past January with some significant concerns about the state of the Texas economy and resource availability. JEditor’s note: The following message was sent via email today from President Taylor Eighmy to all faculty and staff:
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