During the February meeting of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, the Regents approved the UCCS Ten-Year Facility Plan and saw three budget scenarios presented for UCCS.
Facilities Master Plan
The Board of Regents voted to approve the UCCS Ten-Year Facility Plan. This plan offers a road map to future projects and developments to the UCCS campus such as new buildings and infrastructure, renovations, and parking. The Ten-Year Facility Plan project team met with over 40 stakeholder groups with over 400 participants throughout campus and the community including the CU System Design Review Board. Required by the Colorado Department of Higher Education, it establishes long-range planning for architecture, land use, space use, transportation, and utilities within the vision established by the strategic plan. This plan does not promise that all projects will be funded but instead establishes a framework to guide possible future development.
Explore the Ten-Year Facility Plan here.
Budget
During the Board of Regents meeting, UCCS presented three initial general fund scenarios for the university. These budget proposal scenarios include possible tuition increases, fee increases, salary and benefit increases, inflation increases, and mandated cost increases.
The budget assumptions for each scenario are:
Scenario A – Governor’s Budget Proposal
Overall funding to the CU system and state funding for higher education is reduced by 0.1%. Eliminates funding for cybersecurity ($2.8 million). Eliminates the rural health initiative which primarily funds student scholarships ($65,000). Total reduction to UCCS if scenario A is approved would be 6.4% or approximately $3.3 million in state support. Scenario A includes:
- Tuition increase of 2.3% for undergraduate resident students.
- Tuition increase of 2.4% for undergraduate non-resident students.
- Increase of 2.5% for merit and compression, retention and equal pay, subject to revenue thresholds.
- This scenario could result in a budget gap of $6.2 to $9.5 million.
Scenario B
Overall funding to the CU system and state funding for higher education increases by 1.2%. Scenario B includes:
- Tuition increases of 2.4% for undergraduate resident and non-resident students.
- A 2.5% increase for merit and compression, retention and equal pay, subject to revenue thresholds.
- This scenario could result in a budget gap of $5 to $8.4 million.
Scenario C
Overall funding to the CU system and state funding for higher education increases by 2.2%. Scenario C includes:
- Tuition increase of 4.5% for undergraduate resident students.
- Tuition increase of 2.4% for undergraduate non-resident students.
- A 2.5% increase for merit and compression, retention and equal pay, subject to revenue thresholds.
- This scenario could result in a budget gap of $2.9 to $6.2 million.
In all instances, it is important to note that similarly to past years, the campus’ overall budget is not being cut and does not decrease.
However, a budget gap exists because revenue is not increasing as quickly as campus expenses, resulting in the need to reduce spending across campus to reallocate funding to cover required mandatory expenses such as utilities, inflation, insurance and campus funding choices such as merit pay.
To learn more, the next UBAC meeting is Wednesday, February 19 from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in University Center 303. The meeting will be recorded for later viewing as well as livestreamed. Contact [email protected] for access to the Microsoft Teams channel where all materials are available to the UCCS campus community.