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Conference committee accepts House formula, keeps pharmacy factor at 14 and trims multiple one-time higher-education items
Summary
A Senate–House conference committee voted unanimously to accept the House version of the higher-education funding formula while retaining a pharmacy factor of 14, and reached consensus to remove or reduce several one-time appropriations. Several large campus requests were deferred to a later session today.
Chairman Sorvaugh opened the conference committee on Senate Bill 2003, the higher-education budget, and the panel unanimously approved a motion to accept the House proposal for the funding formula while keeping the pharmacy professional school factor set at 14.
The committee’s decision on the formula was the lone roll-call vote recorded during the session. After a motion and second, Chairman Sorvaugh called the roll; Senators Shively and Thomas and Representatives Swan Tech, Sanford and Richter voted “aye.” “It carried unanimously,” Sorvaugh said after the tally.
Committee members said the accepted formula aligns the professional schools’ treatment between the House and Senate positions while preserving the lower pharmacy factor. That change alters individual institution allocations compared with the original Senate position, members said, and allows staff to begin preparing the reconciled formula language.
Beyond the formula, conferees worked through one-time and supplemental line items across campuses and systemwide programs. By consensus the committee agreed to remove a $3.2 million appropriation for a Lake Region project and to drop a $2.0 million additional request for high-performance computing at the University of North Dakota (UND) and North Dakota State University (NDSU). The committee also agreed to eliminate a $1.0 million campus information-technology infrastructure item and to remove a $500,000 campus-security request for Dickinson State University.
On other campus items, the House’s $500,000 for Bottineau housing maintenance was left in the package, and the committee agreed to reduce Dickinson State deferred-maintenance funding by $1.0 million while leaving a remaining appropriation. Mayville State’s House-funded campus security and salary package (about $3.075 million) was removed by agreement. The committee left a Senate-level supplemental of $5.0 million for student financial aid in place.
Members discussed Williston State College’s start-up request (about $1.4 million) and the workforce-education innovation grant fund, which the conferees have set at $12.0 million in the current package. Dave Krebsak, a staff member participating in the meeting, advised that the workforce innovation grant fund is eligible to cover start-up costs — including equipment, materials and labor — for new programs. “The workforce innovation grant funds … would be eligible for all of those startup costs for the program for new programs,” Krebsak said. Committee members said that if the workforce fund is maintained at an adequate level, some campus start-up requests could be routed through that competitive fund instead of being earmarked as individual line items.
Several large requests — including UND STEM building funding, UND Allied Health facility dollars, NDSU Horizon program funding and other multi‑million-dollar projects — were set aside for later discussion. Committee members said they will resume consideration of those “big-ticket” items when the conference reconvenes.
Chairman Sorvaugh reminded members that the committee planned to meet again at 4:30 p.m. to continue the budget work and said the goal is to finish the higher‑education budget in the next day and a half. The committee adjourned to reconvene at that time.
