Legislative Update - April 10, 2006

Last week the legislature gave final approval to the 2007 fiscal year appropriation for the Education Trust Fund. The House and the Senate both rejected Governor Bob Riley’s executive amendments and then over-rode his veto.

Again, I am proud to announce that Troy University will receive the largest increase in our appropriation since our office was created. TROY will receive $52,067,717 for FY ’07, this is an increase of $8,607,957. This 19.81% increase is one of the largest with the other non-doctoral institutions averaging only a 17.43% increase.

This budget will help TROY cover mandated cost such as retirement benefits and insurance cost for our retirees. Many have asked if this budget includes a pay raise for higher education faculty and staff. While the Legislature normally addresses pay raises and sets the rate for K-12, individual university boards set pay increases for their faculty and staff.

The ETF Budget also addresses our FTE funding crisis. Currently we are the lowest funded non-doctoral university at $3842 per FTE. We lobbied extensively to increase our appropriation and were successful in making the first steps to get us to the average of the other non-doctoral institutions. Joining us in our efforts was the University of South Alabama who currently is in the same position.

We want to thank the members of the Alabama Legislature for their efforts in the budget process. Again, Representative Alan Boothe along with Senator Jimmy Holley and Senator Gerald Dial led the charge for Troy University. We also thank the members of our alumni delegation for their leadership.