Press Release, Kansas Board of Regents
In Topeka, the Kansas Board of Regents requested the following budget priorites, totaling $28.85 million, were approved for submission to the Governor’s office for consideration as revisions to the FY 2017 Unified State Appropriations Request:
TOP PRIORITY REQUESTS
Amount of Increase Over
Initial FY 2017 Appropriation
WSU – Establish Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering
$2,000,000
KU – Integrated Science Buildings for Innovation Way
$3,500,000*
KUMC – Merit-based salary increase
$3,406,215
KSU – Geoscience Support in the College of Arts and Sciences
$5,000,000
FHSU – Initiatives to increase Retention and Graduation Rates
$2,188,568
ESU – Establish state funding for the Department of Nursing
$500,000
PSU – Create the PSU School of Transportation
$1,500,000
Close the Gap in the Tiered Technical Education Formula
$8,310,534**
Excel in CTE Initiative
$2,250,000
Office space – 32% SGF increase in state lease rate & reduced federal share
$178,000
Midwestern Higher Education Compact annual state commitment increase
$20,000
* recurring at $7m
** bringing the total annual appropriation to $23 million
In addition to the above recurring appropriations, the Board approved seven additional FY 2017 requests for future consideration, including Support for Economic, Innovation, Diversification, and Technology Transfer at Wichita State University ($9.2 million, $3.2 million recurring thereafter, plus $12 million in capital improvement support over two years); Innovation Equipment at Wichita State University ($10 million, plus $2.5 million recurring thereafter); Planning for New Food Systems Research and Education Facility at Kansas State University ($5 million, recurring); An Initiative to Strengthen the College of Architecture, Planning, Design at Kansas State University (note: this $3.7 million was already appropriated for FY 2018, however the request is to change the source of the funding from EBF to SGF); STEM Programming for Kansas Economy at Emporia State University ($715,700, recurring); A Rural Health Care Professions Initiative at Pittsburg State University ($1 million, plus $2 million recurring thereafter); and Support to Strengthening Community-Based Medical Education in Wichita at the University of Kansas Medical Center ($3.5 million, plus $5.7 million recurring thereafter).