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News

UH awaits approval for state funds

Revenue bonds, TMC partnerships among University requests

By Portia-Elaine Gant
Senior Staff Writer

Though the state has more money than it did in the last legislative session, it's still too early to predict how much of the UH System's more than $300 million in appropriations requests will be met.

"The state revenues are much better than they were two years ago, but it's not just a question of getting our issues funded," Grover Campbell, vice president and vice chancellor for governmental relations, said.

"We have to compete with other worthy state needs such as public education, health and human services, children's protective services and children's insurance," Campbell said.

Most of the University's 16 special item requests are previously funded programs, such as institutional enhancement funding, the top priority in UH's request. For fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the state awarded the System $3.8 million, but asked all state agencies to reduce their budgets by 5 percent.

UH has requested $1.01 million in enhancement funding this year with an additional request to recapture that 5 percent.

Also getting high priority in the University's request are tuition revenue bonds, partnerships to support public schools and the Texas Center for Superconductivity.

Among the new requests is funding for partnerships between the System and the Texas Medical Center that would allow the UHS to begin "expanding and enhancing our partnerships and activities" in the medical field.

The $1.3 million request would fund a new office at UH with the purpose of "developing, managing, and promoting health-related initiatives and partnerships" between the University and the Medical Center.

The other three new requests are funding for the University Eye Institute and to establish a Center for Energy Materials Transmission Technology and a Houston Infrastructure Technology and Assistance Center.

Though the University Eye Institute is already functioning at UH, the state funds would allow it to hire more personnel, get more equipment and nearly double the number of indigent patients it serves.

The Center for Energy Materials Transmission Technology would study critical energy transmission issues, while the Houston Infrastructure Technology and Assistance Center, according to UH's legislative request, would "integrate regional emergency response activities into a single center."

The state's investment in the center would be matched by regional support, and the University hopes to eventually receive between $10 and $20 million in federal funding for it each year.

In addition to the special items, UH has asked for four tuition revenue bonds, which help finance campus building projects. The requests would fund renovation of science buildings, a proposed building in the Texas Medical Center and additions to the College of Optometry's J. Davis Armistead Building and Melcher Hall.

The bond requests total more than $200 million.

Students will have the chance to make their voices heard with respect to the legislative requests Feb. 8, when hundreds of System constituents will travel to Austin to meet with legislators and discuss UH issues.

Information on the trip is available at www.houstonalumni.com/cats.

Campbell suggested other ways students can get involved in the process as well.

"All of the students live in a legislative district where they have representatives, and that's the most obvious way to get involved. They can contact their elected officials," he said.

"During the last legislature when there were so many proposals about changing tuition, students were very involved," Campbell said. "Ultimately, all of these issues come back to the classroom and the quality of the education that the University is able to provide for its students."
 

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