Honorable John Zerwas, Chair, House Committee on Higher Education
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB1000 by Zerwas (Relating to state support for general academic teaching institutions in this state.), As Introduced
No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
The bill would amend the Education Code relating to state support for general academic teaching institutions in the state. The bill would rename the Texas Competitive Knowledge Fund (TCKF) as the Texas Research University Fund, and would make changes to the eligibility of the fund. The provisions of the bill define eligible institutions as institutions designated as research universities that made total annual research expenditures of not less than $450 million in three consecutive fiscal years, and removes emerging research universities from eligibility.
The bill would rename the Research Development Fund (RDF) as the Comprehensive Research Fund and would make changes to the eligibility of the fund. The provisions of the bill define eligible institutions as general academic teaching institutions other than The University of Texas (UT) at Austin, Texas A&M University, or emerging research universities.
The bill would create the Core Research Support Fund to provide funding to promote increased research capacity at emerging research universities. The provisions of the bill define the fund as a fund outside the state treasury administered and invested by the Comptroller of Public Accounts (CPA). The bill would allow the fund to consist of amounts appropriated or transferred to the credit of the fund, including gifts or grants from any public or private sources. Under the provisions of the bill, the CPA would distribute the total amount of assets in the fund to eligible institutions each fiscal year based on the average amount of restricted research funds expended by each institution per year for the three preceding state fiscal years, as reported to the Higher Education Coordinating Board. For institutions that previously incurred an appropriation reduction under Education Code, Sec. 62.0535, the bill would require those institutions receive an additional amount from the fund equal to the amount of the previous appropriation reduction. The money received by an institution from the fund could be used only for the support and maintenance of educational and general activities that promote increased research capacity at the institution.
The bill would require institutions that receive money from the Core Research Support Fund to submit a report to the Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Legislative Budget Board regarding the manner in which the funds were used by the institution and information on the use of fund the institution previously received from the Texas Excellence Fund or University Research Fund, if applicable.
It is assumed that there would be no net change in General Revenue under the provisions of the bill, but that there would be a redistribution of funding between each of the new and redefined funds, and a resulting redistribution between institutions of higher education.
The Eighty-third Legislature, Regular Session, 2013, appropriated $159,242,726 in General Revenue to the TCKF strategies provided directly to institutions. Under the provisions of the bill, UT Austin and Texas A&M would be the only institutions eligible to receive funding from the Texas Research University Fund. This analysis assumes UT Austin and Texas A&M would receive funding from the Texas Research University Fund in an amount equal to the appropriations the institutions received in the 2014-15 biennium from TCKF (totaling $112,106,194 in General Revenue).
The Eighty-third Legislature, Regular Session, 2013, appropriated $73,079,780 in General Revenue to the RDF strategies provided directly to institutions. Under the provisions of the bill, general academic teaching institutions other than UT Austin, Texas A&M, and emerging research universities, would be eligible to receive funding from the Comprehensive Research Fund. This analysis assumes the eligible general academic institutions would receive funding from the Comprehensive Research Fund in an amount equal to the appropriations the institutions received in the 2014-15 biennium from the RDF (totaling $14,061,376 in General Revenue).
This analysis assumes the remaining TCKF appropriations from the 2014-15 biennium (totaling $47,136,532 in General Revenue) and RDF appropriations from the 2014-15 biennium (totaling $59,018,404 in General Revenue) would be appropriated to the Core Research Support Fund established by the provisions of the bill for the 2016-17 biennium. This analysis assumes the appropriations would include the distribution based on restricted research funds as provided by the bill as well as any additional appropriations necessary to equal any previous appropriation reduction amounts to applicable institutions under Sec. 62.0535, as provided by the bill.
The allocation of funding between eligible institutions for each research fund will change each biennium depending on the change in eligible research expenditures at each institution.
Local Government Impact
No fiscal implication to units of local government is anticipated.
Source Agencies:
304 Comptroller of Public Accounts, 710 Texas A&M University System Administrative and General Offices, 720 The University of Texas System Administration, 758 Texas State University System, 768 Texas Tech University System Administration, 769 University of North Texas System Administration, 781 Higher Education Coordinating Board, 783 University of Houston System Administration