From the Desk of Don Gehring                               Date: February 9, 2009

The House and Senate released their recommendations to the Governor’s introduced budget yesterday, Sunday, February 8th.  The House has named Delegates Putney, Hamilton, Cox, Sherwood, Hogan, and Joannou as budget conferees.  The Senate will name their conferees on or before February 18th. 

The House and Senate budgets varied in revenues used to fund their budget as well as priorities.  These budgets are preliminary and will change when more is learned of additional revenues from the federal economic recovery package.   In addition, information received yesterday is only a piece of what may be included in the budgets.  More detailed information will be released at noon on February 10th.    

Here is a brief overview of the House Appropriations Committee and Senate Finance Committee recommendations:

House

• Did not include any increase in faculty or staff salaries

• Did not include any change to base adequacy reductions in FY09, but did restore $4.3 million in FY10 for the Access and Affordability Initiative.  The Governor’s introduced budget contained a $10 million reduction for FY09 and $30 million reduction for FY10.

• Eliminated $4.3 million in student financial aid

• Reduced restructuring incentive funding for all Tier 3 universities by $5 million

• No further reduction in Medicaid budget from what the Governor introduced ($1.9 m reduction for FY09 and $3.4 m reduction for FY10)

Senate

• Did not include any increase in faculty or staff salaries

• Did not include any change to base adequacy funding from what the Governor’s introduced budget ($10 million reduction for FY09 and $30 million reduction for FY10)

• Increased financial aid funding by $516,847

• No reduction in restructuring incentive funding

• Restored $4 m for Eminent Scholars Program for all universities in FY10

• Increased the capital fee for out-of-state students from $2 to $6 per credit hour

• Reduced Medicaid payments to teaching hospitals and physicians by 3%

• Authorizes institutions to proceed with capital outlay plans using their own money which “may” be reimbursed from future general fund support

If you have questions, contact Don Gehring (dcgehrin@vcu.edu) or Mark Smith (mesmith@vcu.edu). Our office phone number is: 804-828-1235.