Senate renews plan to let UMass keep tuition money on campus
The University of Massachusetts would be allowed to keep tuition revenue that campuses collect from in-state students under a proposal Senate leaders plan to insert into a $361 million midyear spending bill.
The tuition retention clause, which would fundamentally change the way UMass is funded by the state, has passed the Senate multiple times in the past, but has never made it into law.
A Senate Ways and Means amendment to Gov. Charlie Baker's budget bill would force negotiations with the House over UMass funding as House leaders begin drafting their own fiscal 2016 budget plan due in April.
"It's a policy that every other public university system in the country has and we've run into some bumps in the road on this over time, but our intent was to put it in this supp now so that we could potentially include it in the FY '16 budget in both the House and Senate and actually carry it out," said Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, a Democrat whose district is home to UMass-Amherst. "I think, especially in these difficult times, it would be helpful for them to have tuition retention."
UMass campuses are currently allowed to keep tuition paid by out-of-state students as well as fees charged per semester, which tend to be much higher than tuition. Tuition from in-state students - about $31 million - is delivered to the state's General Fund, and UMass gets a state appropriation through the annual budget process.
Though Rosenberg said UMass would not stand to gain additional money through tuition retention, he called the current practice "not an efficient way of managing public higher education finance."
In an opinion piece written last year in support of tuition retention, UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan said tuition amounts to one-eighth of a student's total expense for attending a public university. He said tuition retention would increase price transparency for students and allow campuses to have more "flexibility and freedom" in long-term planning.
"The legislation would allow the campuses of the University of Massachusetts system to keep the tuition it collects from students who are residents of the state, rather than remit it to the state treasury, a process requiring a brain-bending series of accounting adjustments, including those for more than 30 'tuition waivers,' scholarships, and grants for targeted groups bestowed over the years by the state Legislature or the Board of Higher Education," Meehan wrote in a op/ed for the Boston Globe.
Gov. Charlie Baker, during his 2010 campaign for governor, supported the idea of tuition retention.
While tuition rates are set by the Board of Higher Education and have not increased in more than a decade, fees set by the UMass Board of Trustees have gradually increased, accounting for a greater share of a student's overall expense.
"Tuition retention is the mechanism that will allow the University of Massachusetts to rationalize tuition and fees in a way that is more transparent and consistent with other peer institutions," UMass spokeswoman Ann Scales wrote in an email, explaining that the change would make it easier to present students with an easy-to-understand bill that can be compared with other universities.
The Senate on Monday introduced a $361 million fiscal 2015 supplemental budget, a reworked version of legislation that cleared the House last week.
Senators said $402 million in total spending authorized in the bill would be offset by federal and municipal reimbursements attached to the Prescription Advantage program, prescription costs at the Massachusetts Hospital School and at the Group Insurance Commission.
The bottom line of the Senate Ways and Means bill is slightly higher than the $347 million bill that passed the House last week. The Senate incorporated $3.4 million for the Department of Developmental Services related to the closure of the Fernald Developmental Center, costs associated with UMass collective bargaining agreements, and a request for more funding for emergency shelters and HomeBASE assistance made to lawmakers over the weekend.
Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Sen. Karen Spilka said the governor's office planned for this additional spending, which is largely driven by high caseloads for human services, when it developed its plan earlier this winter to close a $768 million budget gap.
"I'm hoping this pretty much holds us toward the end of the year," Spilka said.
The bill, proposed as a Senate Ways and Means Committee amendment to H 65, was scheduled on Monday for floor consideration on Thursday, with amendments due by 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
Spilka said her committee's bill omitted several outside sections incorporated by the House with an eye toward setting up a negotiating platform when the bill moves into conference committee.
Among the provisions dropped by the Senate were sections establishing a statewide grand jury, waiving the billable hours cap for public defenders handling family law cases, and doubling the amount to $1,200 that slot machine gamblers in Massachusetts may be able to win before they must stop playing and report their winnings to the IRS.
"We are trying to do other sections than the House did so these would be up for conference," Spilka said.
Though the Senate during the 2011 expanded gambling debate rejected the House's attempt to align the IRS winnings threshold with the federal $1,200 limit, Rosenberg on Monday said he's keeping an "open mind" and suggested there could be amendments offered on Thursday.
"I've been open to that proposal. We want to have a robust and competitive gaming marketplace here in Massachusetts. We still had some more homework to do on it and so the Ways and Means Committee did not move forward with it today but we will keep an open mind and we'll keep working on this," Rosenberg said.
Spilka also said she was still reviewing the idea of a statewide grand jury.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments