A panel comprised of public university presidents, the leader of the community college system, state budget director, and Council on Postsecondary Education officials is charged with making performance funding work better. The work group had its first meeting last week.
Murray State University President Bob Jackson said a lack of additional funding hurts the process. “I think that’s the real concern, without new money, we’re simply taking the 2% stop loss and we’re recycling it. And so, there’s going to be winners and losers among us without new money,” said Jackson.
CPE President Aaron Thompson said Murray, along with Morehead, Kentucky State, and six community and technical college schools could be facing, quote, “a financial cliff.” Thompson noted a declining enrollment in some cases creates challenges. He said the aim of performance funding was to create equity, not in-equity.
University of Louisville President Neeli Bendapudi said it shouldn’t be one school competing against another. “This was never about one university or one college versus another. This is about really advancing the cause of higher education and not just for its own sake, but for the economic development and uplifting of communities that higher education offers across the Commonwealth,” noted Bendapudi.
With Kentucky universities challenged with COVID-19 demands, Bendapudi and Northern Kentucky University President Ashish Vaidya both suggested hitting pause and not moving forward with any major changes in performance funding for now.
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