Senate subcommittee passes budget for higher education in FY 2011

Our state advisory council was in Lansing yesterday and today to learn more about the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES) and Michigan State University Extension (MSUE) programs and to share their support for MAES and MSUE with their state legislators. The timing of our spring council meeting couldn’t have been more opportune: the Senate Higher Education Subcommittee for Appropriations adopted their proposed budget for 2011 this afternoon and passed it out to the full Appropriations Committee. And the good news is that the Senate panel, like Governor Granholm, proposed funding MAES and MSUE as they did the other universities in the higher education budget. In other words, our budgets were treated the same as the rest of higher education.

The Senate subcommittee’s budget differs from the Governor’s in that the Senate budget would cut funding for all state-supported institutions of higher education by 3.1 percent of their FY 2010 budget (they also restore General Fund to our budget to replace the federal stimulus funds we were appropriated for FY 2010). This would represent a $924,800 reduction in MSUE’s funding and a $1,072,200 reduction in MAES’ budget. MSU would face a $9,149,200 reduction. Although a budget reduction is not something we would normally consider as a positive outcome, given the kinds of reductions other funding lines in the state budget are facing and that our colleagues in other states have experienced, our proposed budgets are quite favorable and reflect the widely held assessment that higher education is a key force for Michigan’s economic success. I think we’re fortunate to be considered on a par with the rest of higher education in the state budget planning process. And our internal budget planning process has accounted for a reduction of this magnitude.

This vote is just one in a series of votes that are needed before the budget is set for FY 2011. The full Senate Appropriations Committee still needs to act on this proposed budget, and then the full Senate will need to vote on it. Later this spring, the House budget process will come around to higher education, and then any differences between the House, Senate and Executive budgets need to be resolved by the conference committee representing all players (House, Senate and Governor).