KU, higher education see positive results from Legislature

Session focus shifts from budget cutting to investment decisions

After a long and challenging period of budget cuts and state-imposed allotment reductions, 2004 proved to be a positive year in the Kansas Legislature for KU and public higher education.

“Unlike the past two legislative sessions, the focus this year was less on cutting basic university funding and more on how best to invest in the state’s higher education system,” said KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway.

K-12 funding needs were not addressed, Hemenway noted, which has to concern higher education. But overall, the budget was a positive and long-overdue change for higher education.

The 2004-05 budget bill, adopted April 1, includes a 1 percent block operating grant increase for the Kansas Board of Regents universities. It also provides part of the third year of a faculty salary increase promised under legislation in 1999. Also approved: a 3 percent state-funded salary increase for faculty and staff—after two years of little or no new money.

The bill mirrors a proposal introduced by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius in January. One change from the governor’s original language was the Legislature’s addition of $500,000 for the KU Medical Center, reflecting the special mission and funding needs of that campus.

“We supported the governor’s budget proposal, knowing it was the best deal possible for public higher education this year,” said Hemenway.

Even so, it is less than the Board of Regents requested last summer and is not enough to offset KU’s fixed employer cost increases, such as health insurance.
Hemenway noted that some tuition and fee-funded reserves also must be tapped to fully pay for the 3 percent salary increase.

“We are assured that this is a one-time expenditure,” he said. “Even so, it’s troubling, and we need to make sure that new funds for salary increases are found for next year.”

The most significant nonbudget issue for KU this spring was the Kansas Economic Growth Act (HB 2647), a bill that creates a “Biosciences Authority” in the state, modeled, in part, on the University of Kansas Hospital Authority. The goal of this bill is to use up to $500 million in new tax revenue—generated over the next decade by growing biosciences companies—to fund biosciences research, facilities and new staff positions at KU and other universities in the state.

Also passed by the Legislature late in the session was HB 2145, which allows undocumented immigrants to attend KU or another state university in Kansas at resident tuition rates if certain reasonable conditions are met. The Board of Regents and the universities supported the bill.

“We don’t want anyone turned away from KU solely because of money,” said Hemenway. “It doesn’t serve Kansas to have qualified students denied the opportunity for higher education because of their parents’ immigration status.”