State Senate Appropriations Panel Visits Pitt Today: Hearing to Focus on Higher Education Issues, Pitt’s Value as a State-Related University

The Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee will hold a public hearing at the University of Pittsburgh at 1 p.m. today to discuss Pitt’s role as a highly ranked higher-education institution and a powerful engine of economic growth. The hearing will be held in Alumni Hall’s J. W. Connolly Ballroom. In addition to hearing from Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg, the public event will include testimony from two panels. Addressing the committee on Pitt’s role as a provider of high-quality higher education will be a panel comprising Molly Stieber, president of Pitt’s Student Government Board; Graham Hatfull, Eberly Family Professor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, and former chair of the School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biological Sciences; and Stephen Tritch (MBA ’77), chair of the Pitt Board of Trustees. The second panel, which will discuss Pitt’s roles as one of the nation’s leading research universities and a driver of regional economic development, will include Dennis Yablonsky, CEO of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development; Jared Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University; and D. Lansing Taylor, director of Pitt’s Drug Discovery Institute and the Allegheny Foundation Professor in the Pitt School of Medicine’s Department of Computational and Systems Biology.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is traveling to the campuses of the four state-related universities—Pitt, Penn State, Temple, and Lincoln—during September and October for hearings to learn more about the important work done by these institutions and the funding challenges that they face. Pitt’s hearing follows a Sept. 7 hearing at Penn State. Sessions at Temple and Lincoln are to follow on Oct. 12 and 13, respectively. “Our goal is to learn more about how the state-related universities operate and their role in our higher education system,” said Sen. Jake Corman, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Like our other institutions of higher learning, they have been forced to do more with less during these difficult fiscal times—these hearings will give the state-related universities an opportunity to talk about how they are meeting these challenges.” “Over the course of many years, the State Senate has been a strong supporter of Pitt and Pennsylvania’s other state-related universities,” said Chancellor Nordenberg. “This hearing should present a special chance to highlight Pitt’s many contributions, and we are grateful to Senator Corman, Senator Hughes, and members of the Committee for creating this opportunity.” Prior to the hearing itself, Senate Appropriations Committee members will tour Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering to see some examples of the groundbreaking research being conducted by Pitt faculty and students. Gerald D. Holder, Pitt’s U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering, will lead the tour, accompanied by faculty members Marlin Mickle, the Nickolas A. DeCecco professor of electrical and computer engineering; Gregory Reed, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Swanson School’s Power and Energy Initiative; and Steven Little, assistant professor of chemical engineering. Visits to four locations are being planned, including the Swanson Center for Product Innovation, managed by Andrew Holmes; the RFID Center of Excellence, directed by Mickle; and Little’s Biomimetic Delivery Research Laboratory. University officials hope the tour will clearly show legislators the vital research being done at Pitt, as well the role that the University plays in parlaying that research into spin-off companies and local jobs. Applying standard national conventions, through its research spending alone, Pitt now supports, directly and indirectly, some 28,000 local jobs. In terms of direct employment, the region’s two largest employers are UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh. In the year before Pitt became state-related, its annual research expenditures stood at slightly less than $23 million. By 1995, those expenditures had increased tenfold, to more than $230 million, and, by last year, they had climbed to more than $800 million. In fact, Pitt attracted more than $5.50 in research support for every $1 of its appropriation—a return that probably cannot be matched by any other state investment. The Senate Appropriations Committee grants state-related universities an audience annually as the panel lays some groundwork for the next fiscal year’s state budget. But this year’s round of hearings is noteworthy because Pennsylvania’s public higher-education sector was threatened in early March of this year with massive cuts in the initial proposed budget announced by the governor; the projected cuts were designed to help erase a $4 billion state deficit. As part of that March budget proposal, Pitt’s Education and General (E&G) appropriation was slated to be cut by 50 percent and the University’s academic medical center funding—supporting programs in the School of Medicine, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, the School of Dental Medicine, and Graduate School of Public Health—was to be eliminated. Pitt and the other state-related institutions mounted a campaign to restore a significant amount of the funding slated for elimination in the initial proposed budget. The final budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 cut Pitt’s Education and General appropriation by 19 percent and its academic medical lines by 50 percent. In all, Pitt’s total reduction amounted to more than $40 million, a cut of 22 percent. That 22 percent reduction compared to a reduction in overall state spending of 4 percent. Thus, while the cuts imposed on Pitt were far less steep than those proposed in March, they were both deep and disproportionate. To place the funding levels in context, current cuts take Pitt’s appropriation back to the Fiscal Year 1995 level. If federal matching dollars built into this appropriation are not considered—since no such matches were built into state appropriations in the mid-1990’s—the level of the state investment takes the University back to FY 1994, when many of Pitt’s 2011 incoming freshmen were being born. Obviously, the University’s operating costs have risen dramatically since then. From 1995 to the present, the Consumer Price Index rose by nearly 53 percent and the Higher Education Price Index, a more accurate measure of university costs, rose by more than 72 percent. In crafting the University’s current annual operating budget, Chancellor Nordenberg stressed the University’s continuing efforts “to emphasize both the long-standing need to ‘do more with less’ and a companion commitment to maintain tuition levels that are as competitive as possible.” In addition, the chancellor said, Pitt places “a high priority on well-targeted investments in institutional quality and on support for the high-performing members of our faculty and staff whose work makes Pitt an attractive choice for talented and motivated students and for knowledgeable funders seeking the best possible research teams in an increasingly competitive market-place.” In addition to confronting the $40-plus million cut to its state support this fiscal year, the University also faces unavoidable expense increases in such areas as health insurance, facilities costs, and technology investments and licensing fees, as well as the need to make additional academic investments, some driven by growing enrollments and others by the levels of quality that must be maintained to be competitive as a high-value provider. Putting to the side expenses that can be met through such alternative revenue sources as research grants, the University expects these additional cost increases and investments to total about $30 million. When added to the $40-plus million cut to Pitt’s state appropriation, the budget gap that the University had to close this fiscal year, then, was $70-plus million. Consistent with the University’s expressed commitment not to place the entire burden of this year’s funding crisis on the shoulders of its students, Pitt is covering 60 percent of that gap through a combination of central and unit-level budget reductions and adjustments.

The Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee will hold a public hearing at the University of Pittsburgh at 1 p.m. today to discuss Pitt’s role as a highly ranked higher-education institution and a powerful engine of economic growth. The hearing will be held in Alumni Hall’s J. W. Connolly Ballroom. In addition to hearing from Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg, the public event will include testimony from two panels. Addressing the committee on Pitt’s role as a provider of high-quality higher education will be a panel comprising Molly Stieber, president of Pitt’s Student Government Board; Graham Hatfull, Eberly Family Professor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, and former chair of the School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biological Sciences; and Stephen Tritch (MBA ’77), chair of the Pitt Board of Trustees. The second panel, which will discuss Pitt’s roles as one of the nation’s leading research universities and a driver of regional economic development, will include Dennis Yablonsky, CEO of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development; Jared Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University; and D. Lansing Taylor, director of Pitt’s Drug Discovery Institute and the Allegheny Foundation Professor in the Pitt School of Medicine’s Department of Computational and Systems Biology.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is traveling to the campuses of the four state-related universities—Pitt, Penn State, Temple, and Lincoln—during September and October for hearings to learn more about the important work done by these institutions and the funding challenges that they face. Pitt’s hearing follows a Sept. 7 hearing at Penn State. Sessions at Temple and Lincoln are to follow on Oct. 12 and 13, respectively. “Our goal is to learn more about how the state-related universities operate and their role in our higher education system,” said Sen. Jake Corman, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Like our other institutions of higher learning, they have been forced to do more with less during these difficult fiscal times—these hearings will give the state-related universities an opportunity to talk about how they are meeting these challenges.” “Over the course of many years, the State Senate has been a strong supporter of Pitt and Pennsylvania’s other state-related universities,” said Chancellor Nordenberg. “This hearing should present a special chance to highlight Pitt’s many contributions, and we are grateful to Senator Corman, Senator Hughes, and members of the Committee for creating this opportunity.” Prior to the hearing itself, Senate Appropriations Committee members will tour Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering to see some examples of the groundbreaking research being conducted by Pitt faculty and students. Gerald D. Holder, Pitt’s U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering, will lead the tour, accompanied by faculty members Marlin Mickle, the Nickolas A. DeCecco professor of electrical and computer engineering; Gregory Reed, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Swanson School’s Power and Energy Initiative; and Steven Little, assistant professor of chemical engineering. Visits to four locations are being planned, including the Swanson Center for Product Innovation, managed by Andrew Holmes; the RFID Center of Excellence, directed by Mickle; and Little’s Biomimetic Delivery Research Laboratory. University officials hope the tour will clearly show legislators the vital research being done at Pitt, as well the role that the University plays in parlaying that research into spin-off companies and local jobs. Applying standard national conventions, through its research spending alone, Pitt now supports, directly and indirectly, some 28,000 local jobs. In terms of direct employment, the region’s two largest employers are UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh. In the year before Pitt became state-related, its annual research expenditures stood at slightly less than $23 million. By 1995, those expenditures had increased tenfold, to more than $230 million, and, by last year, they had climbed to more than $800 million. In fact, Pitt attracted more than $5.50 in research support for every $1 of its appropriation—a return that probably cannot be matched by any other state investment. The Senate Appropriations Committee grants state-related universities an audience annually as the panel lays some groundwork for the next fiscal year’s state budget. But this year’s round of hearings is noteworthy because Pennsylvania’s public higher-education sector was threatened in early March of this year with massive cuts in the initial proposed budget announced by the governor; the projected cuts were designed to help erase a $4 billion state deficit. As part of that March budget proposal, Pitt’s Education and General (E&G) appropriation was slated to be cut by 50 percent and the University’s academic medical center funding—supporting programs in the School of Medicine, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, the School of Dental Medicine, and Graduate School of Public Health—was to be eliminated. Pitt and the other state-related institutions mounted a campaign to restore a significant amount of the funding slated for elimination in the initial proposed budget. The final budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 cut Pitt’s Education and General appropriation by 19 percent and its academic medical lines by 50 percent. In all, Pitt’s total reduction amounted to more than $40 million, a cut of 22 percent. That 22 percent reduction compared to a reduction in overall state spending of 4 percent. Thus, while the cuts imposed on Pitt were far less steep than those proposed in March, they were both deep and disproportionate. To place the funding levels in context, current cuts take Pitt’s appropriation back to the Fiscal Year 1995 level. If federal matching dollars built into this appropriation are not considered—since no such matches were built into state appropriations in the mid-1990’s—the level of the state investment takes the University back to FY 1994, when many of Pitt’s 2011 incoming freshmen were being born. Obviously, the University’s operating costs have risen dramatically since then. From 1995 to the present, the Consumer Price Index rose by nearly 53 percent and the Higher Education Price Index, a more accurate measure of university costs, rose by more than 72 percent. In crafting the University’s current annual operating budget, Chancellor Nordenberg stressed the University’s continuing efforts “to emphasize both the long-standing need to ‘do more with less’ and a companion commitment to maintain tuition levels that are as competitive as possible.” In addition, the chancellor said, Pitt places “a high priority on well-targeted investments in institutional quality and on support for the high-performing members of our faculty and staff whose work makes Pitt an attractive choice for talented and motivated students and for knowledgeable funders seeking the best possible research teams in an increasingly competitive market-place.” In addition to confronting the $40-plus million cut to its state support this fiscal year, the University also faces unavoidable expense increases in such areas as health insurance, facilities costs, and technology investments and licensing fees, as well as the need to make additional academic investments, some driven by growing enrollments and others by the levels of quality that must be maintained to be competitive as a high-value provider. Putting to the side expenses that can be met through such alternative revenue sources as research grants, the University expects these additional cost increases and investments to total about $30 million. When added to the $40-plus million cut to Pitt’s state appropriation, the budget gap that the University had to close this fiscal year, then, was $70-plus million. Consistent with the University’s expressed commitment not to place the entire burden of this year’s funding crisis on the shoulders of its students, Pitt is covering 60 percent of that gap through a combination of central and unit-level budget reductions and adjustments.