MORGANTOWN – The state Senate Finance Committee on Thursday approved a reworked version of the bill announced before the session to create a new higher education funding formula.
The formula, it was said before the session began, is designed to provide more certainty for higher education, so institutions won’t have to wait until the end of a legislative session to know how much they’re getting.
One section of the bill raised some alarm bells – concerns that it could lead to big tuition hikes at the community and technical colleges – and was excised between the committee’s morning and afternoon meetings.
Committee counsel explained the bill is the result of a yearlong project undertaken by the Higher Education Policy Commission, university and college presidents, legislators and other parties.
They produced an agreed-upon funding formula, counsel said, which the bill outlines and gives the HEPC and the Council for Community and Technical College Education (CCTCE) rule-making authority to bring to life.
The formula is performance based, counsel said, based on student success and institutional goal measures, with productivity incentives. The bill gives latitude for the HEPC and CCTCE to revise the metrics over time.
Before the session began in January, Mirta Martin, Fairmont State University president, representing the West Virginia Council of Presidents, outlined some of the metrics of the formula. It will be a performance-based funding formula, she said, with five metrics. Among the five are completion metrics with premiums assigned to numbers of graduates; workforce outcomes; and an efficiency metric based on the number of degrees awarded to West Virginia residents relative to the total number of degrees.
The original bill that came before the committee Thursday morning was 33 pages.
The problematic part affected community and technical colleges. It said any institution whose state appropriation makes up less than 40% of their gross revenue for three years would be exempt from council oversight. This was intended, counsel said, to allow them to flourish more easily.
Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone, was the first to raise concerns about that provision. He and others made the point that this could lead to tuition hikes.
HEPC and CCTCE Chancellor Sarah Tucker expanded on that. She said the provision wold affect all but West Virginia Northern College in Wheeling.
State law, she said, requres all tution hikes more than 10% in a single year or more than 7% across a three-year rolling average to go before HEPC or CCTCE. With the bill’s exemption in place, hikes could go through without oversight and that could affect financial aid programs such as West Virginia Invests, which is a last-dollar-in program – meaning it will pay for any amount up to the total cost not already covered by other state or federal grants or scholarships and institutional tuition waivers.
Speaking for the four-year schools, WVU Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Rob Alsop said they are good on the funding formula part of the bill. “I think it makes us accountable, it makes us transparent.” But he declined to speak for the two-year schools.
The concerns led committee chair Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, to pause the meeting for a brief huddle with Tucker and Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha. After the huddle, Tarr said they were going to put aside the bill and resume consideration when they returned for the afternoon meeting.
When they reconvened, committee counsel had a new version of the bill worked out with Tucker. It kept the funding formula but cut the community college exemption section. A similar exemption provision applying to some four-year schools was tweaked to take effect if state funding is less than 40% of their operating expenses rather than their gross revenue.
The bill passed in a voice vote. The bill was referenced only to Finance – Stollings said he thought it should also go to Education but Tarr disagreed and declined to forward that request – and will go to the full Senate.
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