At a cost of $1.3 million, Temple College administrators have been forced to throw out their rosy budget projections and plan for a major shortfall.
This line-item veto addresses the controversial issue of proportionality which lawmakers have been debating for the last six years. The law says that for every dollar that is spent in employee salaries there is a proportional amount of funding provided for health care. For state agencies who rely exclusively on state funds there is no issue.
But for entities like community colleges which receive roughly 50 percent state funding and 50 percent local tax revenue, the rule become ambiguous. As state employees, teachers and administrators qualify for health care funds, community colleges then pay for salaries with local funds so they can hire enough staff and the state covers health care costs. This frees up dwindling state aid to be used on other programs.
Back when the state provided 80 percent of community college funding there wasn’t much of a problem but as the responsibility shifted to the local tax base Dr. Marc Nigliazzo, president of Temple College, said that community colleges have turned state-funded health care as a way to stay competitive and overcome funding shortfalls.
In a June 15 proclamation, Perry said the law requires all funds spent on health insurance should be used on employees receiving state salary money and community colleges are guilty of taking advantage of the system.
“Community colleges have violated this provision, using millions of state dollars annually to pay the benefits of non-state-paid employees,” Perry said. “To get money for these employees, community colleges falsified their appropriations requests. As a result, their appropriations for fiscal years 2008-2009 is approximately $126 million too high.”
Nigliazzo said he and his fellow administrators take great offense at being accused of fraud and said every appropriations request went through the proper channels.
Wayne Criswell, vice president of administrative services, pointed out that nowhere on the appropriations forms does it ask to identify how much, if any, of an employee’s salary is paid for by the state. Before acceptance, all community college appropriations requests were sent to through committee in both the House and the Senate, then were accepted on the floor of both legislative bodies, then examined again in a joint committee.
Perry himself accepted the item after the Legislative Budget Board finished its first draft of the budget early this year. Nigliazzo said if Perry had any concerns about proportionality he did not express them before signing the veto.
For the past six years proportionality has been debated in the Legislature each time health care funding is renewed, and Nigliazzo said it was discussed again this year but was set aside.
“The senators and representatives basically said this year that (they’ve) heard enough about proportionality and frankly we thought it was dead,” Nigliazzo said.
Nigliazzo said he wonders what kind of effect this will have on the future of community colleges.
“There was no budget to be balanced, there was no shortage of funds, and they left billions of dollars on the table. Community colleges were singled out,” he said.
When he’s asked how TC has afforded to hire professors at far less then what they might make in the private sector or at a larger institution, Nigliazzo says it is the benefits. Having access to free health care with all the quality hospitals in the area is a big draw, and Nigliazzo fears that without this edge Temple College will not keep up.
“We are going to be severely hurt,” he said. “Much of the gains we had hoped to make this year in keeping with our increased enrollment is going to be lost. (Although) we’re not going to be in nearly as bad a shape as some of our fellow institutions that got no new state funding.”
As a growing institution Temple College was supposed to receive $1.8 million over two years from a $89 million funding bump. Now Temple College is expected to get $250,000 in new funds this year which isn’t enough to support TC’s enrollment growth.
Nigliazzo said current staff members don’t need to worry, there will be no changes to benefits for at least the next two years. Even then it would the very last thing to be considered among a long list of items. Nigliazzo had hoped to hire about 10 new teachers this year - teachers the school has been waiting to hire when the funds became available - but those plans are shot.
Nigliazzo also said several available positions may be left vacant, and even after last month’s tuition increase a total of $665,000 will have be cut from this year’s previously proposed budget. He has asked for his staff to look very hard at course offerings in the fall and consider offering fewer course sections.
A $1.6 million item for new community college facilities was also a victim of Perry’s pen. This item would have provided extra funds for the Texas Bioscience Center operated by TC, but now Nigliazzo said they don’t even have enough new money to make their scheduled yearly payment.
kchandler@temple-telegram.com
