NORTH LITTLE ROCK — The state Higher Education Coordinating Board on Friday recommended $63.5 million in new funding for Arkansas’ colleges and universities, but Gov. Mike Beebe told the board not to expect to get it.
The board voted to approve the recommendation in a special meeting held during its annual trustee conference. The recommended increase would fund all institutions at 75 percent of estimated needs, higher education officials said.
Giving the keynote speech at the conference, Beebe said, “I wish I had greater news to tell you, that we have a big pot of money and that big pot of money is going to alleviate some of your problems. I can’t tell you that, and I’m not going to lie to you about it.”
State finance officials on Thursday predicted a 3.5 percent growth in revenue, or about $161 million, for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Beebe said Wednesday he expects his proposed budget for the next fiscal year to be mostly flat, aside from an increase in K-12 education spending necessary to maintain court-ordered adequacy.
Beebe told the trustees and board members Friday that he was “not insensitive” to their plight, but he said Arkansas’ higher education institutions have not faced the cuts that other state’s institutions have. He also noted that they have seen a boost in enrollment following the creation in 2009 of a state lottery to fund college scholarships.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“I’m going to ask you to continue to do what you’ve been doing, and I’m going to ask you to acknowledge and recognize that as bad as it is, you’re better off than virtually everybody else in the whole nation,” Beebe said.
The governor also encouraged the higher education officials to be optimistic about the future.
“This isn’t going to last forever, people,” he said. “This economy in the fashion that it currently sits in is not going to last forever. We have to position ourselves to be in a posture to take advantage of any recovery in a way that continues to highlight the progress that Arkansas has made in higher education.”
Also Friday, the board approved a funding formula that requires a portion of each institution’s funding to be tied to outcomes such as courses completed and degrees earned, in accordance with Act 1203 of 2011.
Starting in 2013, 5 percent of each institution’s state funding will be tied to these outcomes. The percentage will increase by five percentage points each year until reaching 25 percent in 2017-18.
Interim Higher Education Director Shane Broadway said legislators included language in the law that will allow higher education officials to tweak the formula without going back to the Legislature.
“This is a formula that is going to have to be continually refined,” he said.