Texas is facing a budget shortfall of up to $24 billion in the next legislative session, and the Faculty Senate is preparing for a 10 percent reduction in state funds. The budget cut is expected to be officially announced when the Texas Legislature resumes next year, but the Senate is already planning for the worst.
“Ten percent of our general funds — and this is just the money we’re subtracting from the total revenue we get from the state — comes out to be about 3 percent of our total budget,” Provost John Antel said. “So that’s at least a little bit of good news — but it’s still 13.7 million dollars, which is an awful lot of money.”
The Senate is looking into many different ways to try and combat this loss of funding any way it can — including looking into cutting some programs, Antel said.
“What we’re going to do in the interim in the next few months — it might take a year or two years — we’re going to get together and really try and come down and do program evaluations,” Antel said.
No matter what the outcome of the budget cuts may be, the Senate remains focused on the University’s short and long-term future. While there are some cuts being made, the organization is also ensuring that UH stays on the right track, and it’s looking as far ahead as 10 years.
“We have to think about where we want to be in ten years as an institution, and we have to think about our current priorities — our high level priorities,” Antel said.
Although it wasn’t the most light-hearted discussion, President Renu Khator made sure to emphasize that UH students will always be the first priority, no matter what.
“I want our students to feel that they are not poor cousins to anybody,” Khator said. “We value them, we believe in them, they are special to us, and we want them to be successful and graduate.”
With pending budget cuts in the horizon for the University of Houston, why on earth is UH trying to buy a second radio transmitter tower and frequency license from Rice University, which will also deprive Houston of the unique programming offered by student-run KTRU? It seems to me UH’s priorities are seriously flawed here. As a UH alum, I strongly support UH attaining Tier one status, but buying a $10 million radio station when it already has one, during bad financial times does not seem to me like sound business practices.
Who thumbed down Robert's comment? You have something up your arse if you think he isn't spot on.
Obviously neither one of you know where the funding is coming from — 88.7 is taking out a loan for the money necessary to buy the transmitter. No University funds are being used to purchase the tower.
Do some research before you comment next time.