Utah's higher-education overseers want to centralize and control how money is doled out to the state's nine colleges and universities.
Members of the Board of Regents voted Friday to support a drastic alteration to the funding matrix used to determine where - and how - lawmakers allocate funds to higher education.Higher-education officials also discussed a tentative $30 million ongoing budget and a $56 million supplemental request, which includes $45 million to solve Y2K computer problems and $7.5 million for this year's tuition shortfall. The shortfall resulted from a systemwide switch to the semester system this fall, and student enrollments dropped.
Regents will vote Oct. 22 during a telephone conference on a complete budget in order to prepare for a Nov. 2 report to Gov. Mike Leavitt.
"We could tie the system in a fashion that has never existed before," said regent chairman Charlie Johnson. "It would be a significant change in the way we run this system."
The new funding proposal, under which this year's budget will be given to legislators, is patterned after public education's funding plan. It concentrates less on how many college-credit hours students are taking and more on the total number of students served.
And, just as funding is appropriated to the Utah State Office of Education and distributed to districts, the regents' plan calls for money to be shifted to the office of the commissioner of higher education and then passed on to the institutions.
The schools are currently given funding directly from state coffers.
In the past, Utah's colleges and universities were mostly funded by the number of new students, full-time students and the cost of instruction. Some tuition money also was plugged back into schools.
Funds for compensation and to maintain and operate buildings, though, were fixed amounts, and one-time monies were often given for special reasons and during lean years.
"The formula was getting us by," Johnson said, "but it is not a good formula for the future."
Instructional and non-instructional compensation increases are also built into the new formula.
Commissioner Cecelia H. Foxley lists several advantages for the new funding mechanism. She believes it is simpler, more flexible, avoids specific tuition links for funding and "balances quality issues with growth issues."
Weber State University President Paul H. Thompson offered support but said his staff continually asks, "How will it hurt Weber State? They never ask how it will help Weber State."
Foxley does see some disadvantages, however. Dips in enrollment, either in head counts or graduate programs, may be more punishing than under the current formula.
There also may be some reluctance to allow the regents more control of funds historically allocated by lawmakers, she said.
"This is a sound policy for higher education in this state, if we could just get there," Johnson said. He added that the new formula, by design, would allow some changes in funding.
Asked by regent Evelyn Lee if the proposal would decrease the political nature of higher-education funding, Johnson responded that he had no feeling one way or the other.
It is, though, a good year to implement an untried system, given the Legislature's pledge to hold institutions harmless for drops in enrollment.
"This is not a panacea that cures all ills," he said. "It is a beginning point of a process to make this system better."