| UT regents, state lawmakers face off over excellence fund 04/13/2001 Associated Press AUSTIN – University of Texas System regents normally don't spend hours at the Capitol negotiating with lawmakers, especially over $16 million – pocket change in terms of higher education funding.
But in recent weeks, some regents have been attempting to do just that, trying to get the UT System's smaller schools included in a bill that would provide $16 million for research at other state universities.
The lobbying has created a political backlash. The UT System is either greedy and meddling where it doesn't belong or just taking care of its own, according to some lawmakers.
"Most of us are disappointed in the parochial reaction from UT," Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, told the Austin American-Statesman in an article on Thursday. "I am disappointed that my alma mater and their lobbying has confused the issue. Regardless, something needs to be done, because research and technology are too important for the future of this state to let squabbling get in the way."
The bill would create the Texas Excellence Fund and is intended to help more of the state's colleges become nationally competitive.
Only the state's two flagship universities, UT-Austin and Texas A&M at College Station, currently qualify as top-tier research universities. Each of them has access to a $7.7 billion endowment known as the Permanent University Fund. UT-Austin receives about $100 million a year from the PUF for research, faculty recruitment and other uses. The other schools only receive money from the fund for construction.
Ellis and Rep. Rob Junnell, D-San Angelo, the bill's sponsors, say more of the state's 27 schools that don't have access to the PUF also should be flagships, such as Texas Tech, University of Houston and the University of North Texas.
"The UT System and A&M have done a good job in their research portfolio, and now it's time for others of us to step up to the plate," said Texas Tech Chancellor John Montford, a former state senator.
The UT System was originally left out of the bill, but regents in recent weeks have negotiated their way into the Excellence Fund – and generated some ill will at the Capitol.
UT System campuses at Arlington, Dallas, El Paso, Odessa, San Antonio and Tyler and A&M campuses at Galveston and Stephenville were added to the list of excellence fund beneficiaries.
Lawmakers have complained that UT was wrong to get involved in the business of other schools and that UT made a deal with the Senate and then went shopping for a better one in the House.
The UT System has not been greedy, said Charles Miller, a UT System regent from Houston. UT's other campuses need to have a chance at those dollars, which can be used to hire better faculty and improve their stature. While pools of money start out at $16 million, it is designed to increase over time. Miller said if UT isn't included now, it might never have the chance to get into the fund.
"The other institutions all lined up to their benefit, and they left us out," Miller said.
A compromise hammered out between UT officials and lawmakers creates two pools of money, both starting out at $16 million a year from the state: one for the colleges in the original bill and the other for the UT and A&M campuses.
Unlike the original bill, the compromise would require additional money in the already tight state budget.
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