(This legislative update has been assembled by the UH System Office of Governmental Relations and edited by the UH Division of University Advancement as a service to the UH System community.)
Both the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee have tentatively completed work on Article III (Education) of the Appropriations bill. A few issues are still pending and they may revisit decisions they made this week before sending the bills to the floor for a vote. A brief description of some of the key issues follows:
Tuition Revenue Bonds -- Both houses included total funding for interest and principal for all outstanding TRBs.
Formula Funding -- Both houses corrected technical errors. The House uses the current matrix and Senate uses the new matrix with a phase-in. The House reduced the total amount allocated through the formulas due to several institutional specific and technical issues. The Senate increased formula funding by $127 million. They had a protracted discussion on tuition. It is the feeling of the committee that if this funding remains, the universities should not have substantial increases in tuition. They may include a rider to that effect. The House retains the teaching experience supplement. The Senate is considering eliminating or altering the supplement.
Higher Education Fund -- Members of both houses have expressed interest in increasing the fund. However, no source of revenue has been identified.
Research Development Fund -- The introduced bill included only $11 million per year, reflecting the amount that was allocated after the vetoed funds were restored. The Senate restored the remaining $11 million per year, which reflects the base amount appropriated last session.
The deadline for free introduction of legislation falls next Friday. This is a constitutional rule that is generally strictly enforced in the House and viewed more casually in the Senate. After that date, no legislation may be filed without an extraordinary vote of the Legislature. As many as 2,000 more bills may be filed over the next week and the number of bills we are tracking is likely to double.
As you can see from the subject line of this memo, we have completed the eighth week of this process that ends on Monday, May 30. Throughout April and May, we will face additional deadlines for consideration of legislation at various points in the process so the pace will pick up considerably. Substantive committees will begin to post longer agendas and meet late into the night (a schedule already enjoyed by the appropriations committees).
That said, we would like to express our appreciation for the fine work produced by the various UH System administrators and staff who provide background information and analysis on bills. We know that this is an added burden to their regular assignments, but it is absolutely critical to our efforts in Austin. Because of this heightened pace, it becomes even more important to receive your comments in short order.