University systems and HSCs submitted Legislative Appropriations Requests (LARs) that include regularly expected funding but also include exceptional requests, such as one-time IT purchases or longer-term projects. These requests were recently reported by the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), one of the agencies to which all state agency budget planning is submitted.
The 2024-25 Exceptional Items – Initial Agency LAR Submissions lists agencies with biennial appropriations above $40 million.
Among those systems are the University of Texas (UT), University of Houston (UH), University of North Texas (UNT) and a few stand-alone universities that aren’t part of these.
Here are a few requests of note that can be found in the LAR report:
- Lamar University, technical training center for school partnership, $1.5 million
- Midwestern State University (MSU), science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) expansion and center for excellence, $2.3 million
- Steven F. Austin State University (SFA), capital renewal and modernization, $12.7 million
- Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (HSC), telehealth institute, $13.5 million
- UH System Administration, medical research facility, $26.1 million
- UH Downtown, public safety and emergency operations center, $3.4 million
- UNT Health Science Center, digital health and therapeutics, $10 million
- UT Austin, Texas hub for applied cybersecurity, $25.5 million
- UT El Paso, U.S. Census research data center, $500,000
- UT Permian Basin, West Texas cybersecurity institute, $905,000
- UT HSC Houston, Texas all payers claims database, $14 million
Community colleges would benefit from the $58.7 million cybersecurity request made by the Texas Association of Community Colleges (TACC), previously the Texas Public Community/Junior College Association. Its “focus is facilitating communication between participating colleges and institutions, lobbying for favorable legislation,” according to the website.
