Budget reallocation initiative to be extended to Utah technical colleges

A year after Utah public universities implemented a 10% cut of their budgets for courses, the Utah Board of Higher Education voted on Thursday to expand the practice to technical colleges. Without legislative mandates, the board hopes to see how a more flexible reinvestment exercise would work.

Education officials say they hope technical colleges are able to increase capacity in high-demand fields, including health care, engineering and artificial intelligence. The vote to establish a new board-drafted framework follows a law establishing a “strategic reinvestment” initiative for public universities to cut “inefficient programs,” instead favoring degrees with higher demand. 

That action one year ago left some institutions scrambling to comply with the law on tight deadlines. But this time, Geoffrey Landward, Utah Commissioner of Higher Education, hopes the process won’t be as arduous.

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“We only had a couple of months to develop the guidance and then for the institutions to put together their plans. That felt very aggressive and proved to be very challenging,” Landward said. “So with the technical colleges, we’re looking at a four-year timeline.”

After Thursday’s vote the Utah System of Higher Education will now start working on developing an informal guide for reallocations among technical colleges in the state, including timelines, processes and desired outcomes, Landward said.

The framework for reinvestments isn’t ready yet, but officials are looking to start with a 5% reallocation goal of technical colleges’ budgets for instruction. That’s still a flexible number the board can change anytime in the year — rather than waiting for a legislative session to make a change in code.

“We feel like this still is about stewardship, and this is an opportunity for technical colleges to look at their operations, look at the performance of their programs, and make sure that we are investing the resources of the state in the places where we get the best return on investment,” Landward said. “We’re confident that the technical colleges do this well. But it doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement, and that’s the benefit of this kind of process.”

Some technical colleges have expressed concerns about the new process, arguing that the initiative could end up establishing artificial quotas and requiring them to shut down efficient programs just to demonstrate a shift in resources, Landward said.

If the schools are able to demonstrate they are already deploying their resources efficiently, “that’s an acceptable outcome,” Landward said, and wouldn’t require the system to force a program shutdown. Universities didn’t have the same option.

“This is not punitive,” Landward said. “This is not us saying we are concerned with waste and inefficiency at the technical colleges. We think that they are very efficient. We think they do operate well. But it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be scrutinizing our operations.”

The action has been so far well-received by some leaders of technical colleges. Brennan Wood, president of Southwest Technical College, said in a prepared statement he believes strategic reinvestment to be “an important opportunity for Utah’s technical colleges to both strengthen and demonstrate our alignment with workforce needs, while ensuring we are using every dollar as effectively as possible.”

A different process

With some lawmakers inquiring about whether they should run legislation implementing the “strategic reinvestment” initiative in technical colleges, Landward said he hopes the Legislature is able to look at this action and see there’s no need for the state to step in. 

The process for technical colleges, he said, also cannot look identical to the one the state approved for degree-granting institutions.

Colleges, for example, mostly run short-term programs specific to industry needs and with recommendations from industry players. With that model and different success metrics — which require constant change — it is less likely to find programs that have been in place for years without enrollment, Landward said.

“So we need to probably shift the expectations of how we would identify where they would make the investments and where they would make reinvestments given the differences in those models,” he said.

But, the initiative’s goal remains similar to the one for universities, and currently it is centering around shortening wait lists for popular programs that can’t be expanded for lack of space or resources.

Another objective is to expand newer programs, looking at the potential for higher workforce demands in industries like energy, Landward said.

“The Utah System of Higher Education is investing in programs that are growing, serving more students and meeting the needs of Utah’s economy. Strategic reinvestment is about making sure every dollar is working as hard as possible for individual students and the state. We are fortunate to have technical colleges that are such good stewards of these limited resources,” Jon Cox, Utah Board of Higher Education vice chair said in a statement. 

Reinvestment decisions will take into account data on enrollment, completion, workforce demands and other program outcomes, according to a news release. 

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