Interim President Patricia (Patty) Prelock told the House Appropriations Committee that the University of Vermont is asking for the governor’s 3 percent base increase and two additional investments: $1 million (to be matched by GlobalFoundries) for a gallium-nitride tech hub and $5 million spread over five years to support the Vermont Cancer Center’s push toward NCI designation.

"The university is stable and continues to thrive," Prelock said, summarizing the campus’s enrollment and retention data. She said UVM has 3,664 Vermont students and emphasized the university’s role in workforce development: more than 4,400 graduates have entered the Vermont workforce since 2020. Prelock described a planetary health initiative intended to link environmental research, health research and community outreach, and she said UVM is working with other state institutions to explore a nursing consortium to grow statewide nurse training capacity.

Prelock also warned of a potential federal funding risk tied to changes in federally negotiated facilities and administration (F&A) rates. She said the university has modeled scenarios and that a reduced F&A rate could cost UVM between $10 million and $51 million per year, depending on which grants and funders are affected — a reduction that would have consequences for research infrastructure and hiring.

On the tech-hub and cancer funding, Prelock asked legislators to consider the one-time and multiyear investments as economic-development and health priorities; the tech-hub money would be matched by GlobalFoundries and be used to support companies working with gallium-nitride semiconductor technologies. The $5 million cancer-center ask would be disbursed at roughly $1 million per year over five years to support the Vermont Cancer Center’s work on tumor types that affect rural Vermonters at higher rates, Prelock said.

Committee members asked about research grants and endowment use; Prelock said UVM’s endowment was about $840 million and that most of that is restricted by donor intent, limiting its use for operating needs. No appropriations votes were taken during the session.