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Lawmakers weigh switching higher-education capital allocations from credits to square footage
Summary
Committee members asked system staff to compare using campus square footage — excluding athletics and vacant buildings — instead of credit production to allocate Tier 2 capital building funds (state SIF dollars), and discussed implications for Tier 1 and Tier 3 funding and institutional matching requirements.
Members of the Appropriations - Education and Environment Division pressed staff to model a square-footage-based allocation for state capital building funds at a meeting that focused on Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 capital categories.
The committee asked North Dakota University System staff to provide a comparison showing how the $15,000,000 state portion of Tier 2 capital building funds (and related match requirements) would distribute across campuses if allocations were based on usable square footage rather than credit production. Dave Krevzak of the North Dakota University System presented the existing biennium allocations and explained the difference between the tiers: "What you're seeing here is the capital building fund allocations as of the current biennium ..." and identified $11,100,000 in the Tier 1 extraordinary repairs column, $15,000,000 in the Tier 2 state column and $9,000,000 in Tier 3 in the current display.
Committee members clarified the square-footage definition they wanted modeled. The request excludes athletic facilities and vacant or unused buildings; members said residential (dormitory) and food-service facilities should remain included because campuses must maintain them. Jamie Wilke, director of finance, said Tier 3 generally includes auxiliaries such as residential facilities. Staff agreed to produce a breakdown using the agreed exclusions and to compare results with the current credit-based method for Tier 2; committee members also asked for a comparable, high-level Tier 1 allocation example (the $11,100,000 figure) as a reference.
Members discussed how changing an allocation from the statutory funding formula to a direct appropriation could be implemented. Staff noted the legislature could appropriate Tier 1 dollars outside the formula, but doing so would change base funding and related formula outputs unless the committee reduced the formula by a related amount or moved funds into campus operations. Committee members asked for rough, rounded examples (staff suggested an illustrative $12,000,000 for a reallocation exercise) to understand fiscal consequences before any statutory drafting.
No formal votes were taken. The committee directed staff to produce the square-footage comparison for Tier 2 (and a reference allocation for Tier 1) and return with the results for additional discussion.
The committee then moved to a separate agenda item on online enrollment data.
