AUSTIN – The University of Texas System Board of Regents today (Aug. 23) approved a $10.7 billion operating budget for the 2008 fiscal year, which begins Sept. 1. The new budget represents a 6.6 percent increase, or $656 million, over the previous fiscal year.
"The budget represents increased investments in education, research and health care," said UT System Chancellor Mark G. Yudof. "We are proud to serve Texas in all of these areas and we believe that every dollar invested in them is paid back many times over in better educated young leaders, new discoveries that improve our economy and quality of life, and a healthier and more productive Texas."
More than 80 percent of the increase was distributed among five primary areas of the budget: patient care (up $132 million, or 5 percent); research (up $97 million, or 6.2 percent); instruction and academic support (up $162 million, or 5.7 percent); scholarships and fellowships (up $38 million, or 18 percent); and plant operation and maintenance, including depreciation and interest expenses ($108 million, or 7.8 percent).
Increases in instruction and hospital and clinical expenses are primarily associated with new faculty and staff positions needed for rising student enrollment and growing patient care. Physical plant operations and maintenance at the institutions increased largely because of growing depreciation charges and additional interest expenses.
Revenue from health care, sponsored programs, state appropriations and tuition and fees represent 84 percent of budgeted revenues. State appropriations are $1.9 billion for Fiscal 2008, up $194 million from the Fiscal 2007 budget. State appropriations represent 18.3 percent of the System’s expense budget, up from 17.5 percent in Fiscal 2007.
The UT System’s six health institutions account for more than 64 percent of the overall operating budget. At $2.57 billion, UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston has the largest budget of the System’s 15 health and academic institutions. The institution with the second-largest budget is UT Austin ($1.85 billion), followed by UT Medical Branch at Galveston ($1.45 billion) and UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas ($1.41 billion).
For Fiscal 2008, flexible tuition at academic institutions will generate about $65.9 million of new funding, which will be distributed in the following areas:
- 49.6 percent for new and existing faculty
- 21.6 percent toward scholarships and financial aid
- 12.5 percent toward new academic and student services initiatives
- 10.6 percent for existing staff merit and benefit increases
- 5.7 percent for campus infrastructure
The portion of the budget that will fund the UT System’s general administration functions rose 6.8 percent to $35.2 million for Fiscal 2008. General administration is funded mostly from public endowment income generated by the Available University Fund. The increases in administration will go primarily toward staffing for new strategic initiatives, merit increases for existing staff and related benefits.
The University of Texas System is one of the nation’s largest higher education systems, with nine academic campuses and six health institutions. The UT System has an annual operating budget of $10.7 billion (FY 2008) including $2.3 billion in research funded by federal, state, local and private sources. Student enrollment exceeded 190,000 in the 2006 academic year. The UT System confers more than one-third of the state's undergraduate degrees and educates nearly three-fourths of the state's health care professionals annually. With more than 80,000 employees, the UT System is one of the largest employers in the state.
