Higher-education officials outline $100 million deferred-maintenance placeholder within HB2

Higher education leaders appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee to summarize campus capital needs and a new deferred-maintenance initiative included in the House Bill 2 draft.

Kim Hunter Reed, commissioner of higher education, said campuses submitted 5,154 project requests and the Board of Regents forwarded 79 priorities; 38 of those have new FY'27 funding in the draft. Reed told the committee higher education occupies the majority of the state's building stock: "70% of the state's buildings are higher education buildings." She said the legislature has provided $100,000,000 over two years for a deferred-maintenance program and that $10,000,000 of that total was set aside for a third-party review of campus conditions and preventative-maintenance planning.

What it means: FP&C said the $100,000,000 appears in the current HB2 draft as Priority 5 funding so it is a multi-year placeholder intended to make the program eligible for P1 consideration next year. Matt Baker told the committee that P5 is used to anticipate future-year cash needs and is not immediate spendable cash this fiscal year.

Committee interest and next steps: Members asked campus presidents for project-level details and pressed both FP&C and the Board of Regents on whether deferred-maintenance projects are shovel-ready or primarily placeholders in P5. Reed said the systems and campuses coordinate with FP&C on cash-flow needs and that further campus-level questions would be addressed by system presidents in follow-up hearings.