The federal stimulus package that passed Friday may, in part, reduce the impact of budget cuts on the university system.
Legislators said the package includes about $650 million in federal funding to the state university system and will allow legislators to cut less than the $191 million originally proposed for the 2010 fiscal year.
Republican legislators had previously said they were unsure whether the state would be eligible for federal funding because of provisions requiring the state to maintain a certain level of spending.
Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said the stimulus only requires the state to maintain levels of spending consistent with those in 2006. This means the package will not conflict with the proposed 2010 cuts.
“I don’t see any strings [in the stimulus] that would preclude us from using all the money for education,” Kavanagh said. “All that’s required is a maintenance of effort. … We don’t have to create new programs [to qualify for funding].”
In addition to saving the universities from severe cuts in 2010, the money could save them from additional cuts in 2009, Kavanagh said.
He said the state saw a 20 percent drop in revenue last month. If revenues stay at that level, it could leave the state with an even higher deficit than the one projected in discussions of the 2009 budget cuts, he said.
“If that [trend] continues, and we expect it will, we will be short about $400 million,” Kavanagh said. “We don’t want to make any more cuts in ’09. The ones we made were painful.”
University spokesman Virgil Renzulli said the details of the package are fuzzy, but much of the funding will be mandated for particular uses, such as research. It would not necessarily offset the budget cuts that have caused the University to lay off adjunct faculty members and merge programs.
“This is not budget relief for us,” Renzulli said. “If there were budget relief to the state, it could trickle down to us.”
Reach the reporter at derek.quizon@asu.edu.
