Higher Education Budget Update – Mr. Jason Schrock, CDHE, provided an update on higher education budget issues. He provided a review of the federal funding assistance received by the state’s public higher education institutions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also discussed the budget balancing measures institutions needed to implement as a result of the 58% state funding reduction and their expected tuition declines in FY 2020-21. Mr. Schrock also noted the expected continued budget challenges that institutions will be facing in the near future as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts.
Preliminary Prioritization of FY 2021-22 Capital Construction/Renewal and Capital IT Budget Requests – Ms. Lauren Gilliland, CDHE, provided a brief overview of the capital budget submission process. She reviewed the CCHE capital construction/renewal criteria and capital IT criteria used to evaluate project submissions. Ms. Gilliland then reviewed the prioritization materials that were distributed to committee members, which included prioritized lists of capital renewal/construction and capital IT projects, scoring justification for each project, and the institutions’ full project submissions. Ms. Gilliland noted that the next step in the capital budgeting process is a three week appeals period in which institutions can requests scoring changes.
Capital Project Scoring Review – Ms. Gilliland discussed the timeline for the currently ongoing capital criteria review process. The next step will be to meet with the working group of commissioners to discuss stakeholder feedback.