The Legislature is finishing its labors on the FY 2011 and 2012 budgets today. The House went all night finishing at 8:10am, and the Senate is passing the bills now. The Governor should have the appropriations package soon and is expected to sign all of the bills.
The appropriations bills run from S.B. 1612 through S.B. 1624, the former is the Feed Bill, S.B. 1614 deals with retirement changes, and S.B. 1618 is the Higher Education Budget Reconciliation Bill.
The university system is cut $198M for FY 2012 - $78M for the UA. So the governor came up $28M from her $170M position and the Senate came down $37M from their $235M number.
OTHER ISSUES
Benefits (S.B. 1614)
* State employees hired after July 1, 2011 will not be eligible for benefits until he or she has worked at least ninety days.
* State employees hired after July 1, 2011 cannot become a member of any state retirement system until he or she has worked at least six months (this does not include the optional programs).
* The ASRS contribution total remains the same, but rather than a fifty-fifty employer/employee split, as of July 1, 2011 it will be 47 percent employer and fifty-three percent employee.
SPECIAL UNIVERSITY ISSUES
* The Board of Regents is required to report to the legislature graduation and retention rates by August 1 of each year. (S.B. 1618)
* Each university and community college is charged six dollars per student FTE for the Education Learning and Accountability Fund. This is a one-time assessment due by December 1, 2011. (S.B. 1617)
* Legislative intent is expressed that ABOR and the universities work to recommend a funding structure that “… includes performance and outcome based funding, a student centered financial aid model and a method that addresses the issue of per student funding disparities among the three universities in the fiscal year 2012-2013 budget submittals.” (S.B. 1618, section 10)
My analysis is preliminary. A great many things popped up from nowhere in the last twenty-four hours, and no doubt we will be discussing additional consequences of this budget package over the next week.
If the appropriations measures are passed today, then the session should end in two to three weeks.
Greg Fahey
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