|
Dear Friend of the System,
As you may know, every state agency and public university must make a formal request for funding to the Texas Legislature. This request is known as a Legislative Appropriations Request (LAR). Several weeks ago, the UT System submitted its written LAR, and on October 10 I had the opportunity to present an accompanying narrative to staff from Governor Abbott’s office, the Legislative Budget Board and legislative leaders in person.
As one of our most loyal supporters, you might enjoy this glimpse into the UT System’s scale, priorities, and the impact your support makes possible. So in this month’s message, I would like to share an abbreviated version of my presentation.
Thank you, as always, for all you do for the UT System.
UT System Legislative Appropriations Request
Our universities have three core missions: education, research and service, and the UT System Administration must serve those missions at each of its fourteen institutions. Of those missions, the one most often overlooked is service. I believe we need to elevate the attention we pay to this mission. Our universities, both academic and health-related, exist to serve Texas and the nation.
Our mission statement is bold: “to improve the human condition in Texas, our nation and our world”—and our pledge is to “use the size, diversity and quality of the UT System to advance education, push the bounds of discovery, enhance population health, build stronger communities and shape public policy for the common good.”
First, look at our size: We are by far the largest university system in Texas by any measure, whether budget, annual research expenditures, number of students or number of graduates. With more than 100,000 employees, we are among the largest employers in Texas. Our health institutions and hospitals host more than 7.3 million patient visits annually. The economic impact of an $18 billion enterprise is difficult to understate. For example, just one year after entering the workforce, former UT students earned more than $2 billion working in Texas in 2014, exceeding the amount of state funds appropriated to all UT System institutions in that year.
Next, look at our diversity: We have eight academic and six health-related institutions, each different in size and mission, in who they serve, and in what they offer. Our academic institutions range from UT Permian Basin, a comprehensive university with more than 6,000 students, to the flagship, UT Austin, with more than 50,000 students. Our health institutions range from UT Health Science Center Tyler, a regional academic health center which serves as Texas’ primary respiratory disease center, to UTMB Galveston, home to the Galveston National Laboratory, the first full-size BSL4 lab located on a university campus in the United States. We have three universities formally designated as Hispanic-serving, UT Rio Grande Valley, UT San Antonio and UT El Paso.
And, of course, look at our quality: Among the academic institutions, we have four of the state’s emerging research institutions at Arlington, Dallas, El Paso and San Antonio. UT Austin is one of only three Texas members of the elite Association of American Universities and just last month was recognized as the top Texas university globally. UT MD Anderson is universally recognized as the world’s leading cancer center. And UT System was recently recognized by Reuters as the most innovative higher education system in the U.S. and the fourth most innovative in the world.
As chancellor, I am focused on leveraging the System’s size, diversity and quality in support of our mission to serve Texas and the nation.
That size, diversity and quality directly correlate to the size of the UT System Administration. In terms of centralized functions that maximize efficiency and cost-effectiveness, we do more, and it takes more staff, than what other Texas systems may do. This is not a criticism of how other systems are organized or carry out their functions, but a conscious decision about what UT System Administration will do. And we do a lot:
- Consistent with our statutory responsibility to provide oversight and coordination, we maintain central offices for academic affairs and health affairs, providing direction to the institutions and ensuring consistent policies across our institutions.
- The Office of General Counsel is a central law firm dealing with the complexities that institutions of varying size and internal abilities encounter, including claims and litigation oversight, specialized legal counsel in construction, contracting and procurement, intellectual property, and employment and employee benefits law.
- The Office of External Relations plays a leadership role in the strategy and negotiations that yield gift agreements with donors who give more than $1 billion a year. It also ensures compliance with the terms of more than 14,000 endowments and provides highly customized training and expertise to campus development professionals to help them secure more philanthropy.
- We provide the internal audit function required by law of all agencies and institutions, the cost of which would otherwise be borne by the individual campuses.
- We maintain a system-wide police force of more than 1,400 staff, with over 500 commissioned law enforcement officers, the third largest force in Texas state government.
- We centralize many information technology functions, such as business enterprise software and data center operations.
- We operate and self-fund several insurance programs, including medical malpractice, workers’ compensation, and health insurance for more than 100,000 employees and 23,000 retirees.
- We do centralized financing for capital projects across the System, along with planning and construction services.
The UT System Administration is large, in budget and in headcount, because the System is large and diverse, and we believe the centralized approach to providing these services is more efficient and cost-effective than our institutions could achieve individually.
You can read more in our LAR about what we see as the priorities for higher education and UT as we enter the 85th Session: increased state funding to maintain the current rates for students, infrastructure, research and graduate medical education, and to cover inflation; maintaining the status quo for tuition-setting, tuition set-asides, the relationship of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board with the System and institutions, campus carry and the Texas Dream Act; funding the Hazlewood benefit or modifying the Legacy exemption to help control the costs to us and our students; and providing support for research through the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), Governor Abbott’s University Research Initiative and the Texas Research Incentive Program, or TRIP.
As I said in the beginning, we are unashamedly bold in our vision for the future and the role and mission of the UT System in bringing this better future into reality. We are the largest system, by any measure, and we have the largest and boldest agenda. We think this is what Texans expect—and should expect—of its leaders. The Legislative Appropriations Request we make for the System reflects this.
I have spent my time before you today not focused on the dollar signs and numbers, but on the WHY behind those dollar signs and numbers.
It is important that the legislature and the governor understand the size, diversity and quality of the UT System, the reasons why UT System Administration exists in its current size and structure, and the bold agenda we believe Texans deserve and expect.
Respectfully,
Bill McRaven
Recent One-on-One Blog Posts
Recent UT System News
|