Tensions between UConn, Hartford rise after Lamont budget proposal: Appropriations ‘fall far short or what is necessary’

Tensions are rising between the Storrs and Hartford after University of Connecticut officials announced Wednesday that the governor’s proposed budget will leave the university system and its medical school $160 million in the red.

“Unfortunately, the appropriations proposed for UConn and UConn Health fall far short of what is necessary to adequately fund the university, carry out our critical public health mission most effectively, and fully cover the sizeable costs the state seeks to pass along to us,” UConn President Radenka Maric wrote in an email to the university community Wednesday night.

In response, Maric told a UConn journalism class that she threatened to end the school’s relationship with the XL Center if the budget is cut, according to a report from the Daily Campus.

“I was telling the governor, if there is a cut that I have to do, I’m not going to put the cuts on academic quality, I will do the cuts and make the decision to pull out of the XL,” Maric said.

UConn’s Student Government is planning a campus wide walkout and protest at the State Capitol on Wednesday, Feb. 15, covering the cost of student transportation, box lunches, and “#SAVEUCONN” t-shirts for the first 800 students to arrive.

In an email to the UConn community Wednesday Maric said the proposed budget falls short of the university’s funding requests, and if enacted would result in a loss of $159.6 million in Fiscal Year 24 and $197.1 million in FY25.

She said that tuition would need to rise $3,000 if UConn attempts to cover just the Storrs portion of shortfalls.

According to the Daily Campus, Maric told students UConn’s operations and campus facilities department would be the first to take the brunt of the state’s budget cuts. She explained that UConn would pull out of its deal with XL Center because UConn pays to play at the arena to the benefit of the Hartford community.

“We play at the XL Center, and we pay to play there, so the money that we generate there doesn’t go to us and athletics, it goes to Connecticut,” she said. “When I go and talk to owners of the restaurants, hotels and the parking lots, they say that [their] business only spikes when UConn is playing in Hartford, and that’s when they generate revenue.”

Secretary of the Office of Policy Management Jeffrey Beckham said that the governor is cutting American Rescue Plan Act funding for UConn and the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system in an attempt to pull them back to pre-pandemic levels of state support.

“The baseline appropriation that provides operational support for UConn and UConn Health has increased every year since 2018,” Beckham said. “We’ve given them additional ARPA in this budget for two more years, on top of the baseline appropriation that we hope will taper them down. But they should not have built that into their base.”

Beckham said that the cuts will bring the school to a more sustainable funding level.

“The ARPA funding was one-time federal funding, for emergencies to keep the doors open to pay their expenses, despite the fact that they didn’t have revenue because kids weren’t there. They should have been used for one-time expenses,” Beckham explained. “They should not have used that for ongoing programs.”

Beckham said that the governor’s budget would also consolidate funding for UConn and UConn Health into a single block grant as a way to push the system towards a “stronger financial position.”

“The [UConn John] Dempsey Hospital, loses quite a bit of money, [and] requires quite a substantial infusion of state operational support. We’ve invited them to work on that issue, and they can do that better, we hope, as one university,” Beckham said. “It’s money from the taxpayers of the state of Connecticut, and they deserve value for their dollar and we want the university to get that situation under control.”

Beckham told reporters that Maric was on board with the “One UConn” policy.

“I’ve been talking to President Maric for many months now … about rebalancing the state’s relationship with the university,” Beckham said. “She believes in a ‘One UConn’ one university system, as do we. We hope that across that system they can find efficiencies. They can collaborate among the folks who work there, break down those silos and begin to control their costs.”

But in Wednesday’s email, Maric disagreed.

“The university believes in and has been practicing a ‘One UConn’ model for years with respect to shared services between campuses, but combining the two budgets would have serious implications for our students and patients, and the university opposes this recommendation,” Maric said. “It threatens to create situations and scenarios where UConn is urged or mandated to use funds generated by and intended for the Storrs and regional campuses to, for example, fund unrelated costs at UConn Health in Farmington, or vice versa.”

Maric criticized the governor’s proposal, saying it fails to cover salary increases from state negotiated collective bargaining agreements and the university’s unfunded liability.

“The amount of unfunded liability assigned to us is fiscally devastating, which is why the state pays the unfunded liability for its other agencies,” Maric said. “The unfunded state liability being passed along to UConn has increased from $53 million in 2018 to $106 million today. The state also funds the cost of collective bargaining agreements for other agencies, but proposes not to fully fund them for UConn.”

Maric said that UConn relies on the state for 25% of its annual funding — a figure which in 1991 used to be as high as 50%.

Student Body President Mason Holland said that year over year, students took on the financial burden of reduced state funding.

“While our student debt exploded over the years of shouldering this sacrifice, the state is now in its best financial condition in years. Now was the time when Lamont should have taken the opportunity to become a national leader in supporting its students,” Holland wrote in an email to UConn students. “As students, we once again will face the brunt of those shortfalls while Governor Ned Lamont sits on a record level budget surplus.”

Both Maric and Holland hope that the funding outlook will be different in the Connecticut General Assembly’s final budget, which likely won’t be finalized until June. The months-long process begins with a series of public hearings with testimony and presentations, the first of which includes UConn and UConn Health.

In the meantime, Maric advised students and other members of the university community to lobby their state legislators.