Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Audit And Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Legislative auditors flag data gaps and duplication; system agrees and outlines follow-up, while presidents pare $50M of requests in consensus budget
Summary
The Office of the Legislative Auditor General reported that Utah's higher-education institutions often lack program-level cost and outcome tracking and recommended uniform efficiency measures; system leaders agreed and said presidents jointly removed roughly $50 million of institutional requests to form a single system budget proposal.
Legislative auditors told a state committee that Utah's public higher-education institutions do not consistently track program-level costs and outcomes, limiting presidents' ability to compute program-level return on investment. System leaders agreed and described actions and budget decisions responding to the audit.
Mathias Boone and audit staff described an audit that anticipates enrollment declines after 2028 and noted enrollment and market competition pressure from online and private institutions. The auditors recommended better program-level data, a uniform method for calculating program efficiency, and clearer long-term mission definitions across institutions to reduce duplicative offerings.
Auditors presented examples: program-level five-year wage outcomes and market-share trends in nursing, accounting, software development and data science. They recommended targeted legislative funding for high-priority workforce areas — noting past success with targeted funding for nursing and computer science.
The system accepted the findings. Commissioner Landward said the office "agreed with all of the findings" and viewed the audit as a helpful third-party validation that aligned with ongoing work to create program-level metrics, shared services and a 20-year planning horizon to clarify institutional roles.
Budget and consensus: in a separate presentation, system finance staff told the committee that presidents collectively agreed to remove approximately $50 million in unadopted institution requests from this year's system budget proposal to present a consensus operating budget that aligns with board strategic priorities. The system asked the committee to consider: mandatory compensation and benefits costs; growth funding; a Talent Ready Utah request for first credentials; and one-time cybersecurity tooling requests.
Committee reaction: senators raised equity and mission questions — several argued that pay and social-value considerations should factor into program evaluations — and asked whether growth and performance funding formulas favor larger research institutions. Vice Chair Walter and others said current formulas can produce disproportionate allocations and warrant review.
Ending: auditors and system leaders said they will continue collaborating. The system promised to return with further data improvements, and the legislative audit office said the findings should inform longer-term monitoring and targeted funding decisions.
