SALEM- With Hearing Room F’s speaker phone tuned into legislators across the state who were unable to attend Tuesday’s Emergency Board meeting, the Committee voted to grant $64,762,227 to the Oregon University System (OUS).
The Emergency Board Committee is a standing committee of the legislature that meets in the interim to give emergency funds to agencies who request additional funding.
The OUS asked for just over $29 million to accommodate growth in enrollments at its schools, $11 million to help with “higher levels of externally funded research,” and $23 million to offset some of the cuts coming from the governor’s allotment process.
Specifically, the Committee voted to give the OUS $44 million for the items requested and then transfer an additional $20 million from the Capital Improvement Program Area, which is used to improve the area surrounding the Capitol but not for Capitol maintenance. This $20 million, the Legislative Fiscal Office said, is “not predicted to be needed this biennium.”
According to the Legislative Fiscal Office, the $64 million, plus increased student enrollment and higher tuition rates, will help the OUS end up with about the same ending balance before the budget cuts.
Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, asked the Legislative Fiscal Office if the OUS was in danger of losing funding from the federal stimulus program that had helped balance the state’s budget in February.
The Legislative Fiscal Office responded by saying that post secondary institutions could lose federal stimulus funding since the governor’s lower allotment would push the Universities below their 2006 level of expenditures.
The 19 members that make up the committee then voted unanimously to grant the OUS’s request for a fund increase.
