State higher education leaders are giving the “thumbs up” to the state budget passed last week at the Capitol. University of Louisiana System President Jim Henderson says lawmakers did ‘amazing work” on crafting a budget that fully funds schools under his banner. He says there were a lot of fiscal resources available to legislators, but when you have a lot of available resources.
“You have unlimited demands on those resources and I feel like they really prioritized higher education and talent development in Louisiana and our research and scholarship efforts are going to flourish because of this investment,” said Henderson.
Henderson says there is enough funding in the budget for the fiscal year that starts in July to provide faculty pay raises and to expand nursing programs at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond and at Nicholls State in Thibodaux. He says there is also money needed for much-needed building updates and upkeep.
“So these were much-needed investments that are going to improve our ability to deliver scholarship and research outcomes,” said Henderson.
Henderson says he’s pleased that the level of funding for colleges and universities is sustainable for future years because lawmakers avoided using any of the tens of millions of one-time federal money to get it done.
“Even some of the time one-time expenses that we’ll be able to cover our campuses were funded with recurring dollars and that’s a very sound approach, a very conservative approach to the budget,” said Henderson.
Henderson says this year’s operating and capital outlay budgets represent the largest investment to the U-L System in more than 15 years.
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