President Caboni

Dear Colleagues:

Last night the Kentucky Senate and House of Representatives adjourned for the ten-day veto period. Among their final actions, the General Assembly passed the executive branch biennial budget. The budget includes significant investments in higher education for the first time in more than a decade, and I am pleased to share some highlights with you:

WKU will receive $74,400,000 to construct a new Gordon Ford College of Business building—the first capital project allocation WKU has received from the General Assembly since funding for Ogden College Hall in 2014.

• The budget provides $34,040,000 in each year of the biennium to address deferred maintenance on campus, with a commitment by the University to match at 15 percent.
• The higher education performance funding pool will increase by $97,307,100 each year for the next two years.
• In the first year of the budget, our pension subsidy for the Kentucky Employee Retirement System (KERS) is funded at 100 percent and at 90 percent in the second year.
• LifeWorks at WKU will receive $2,800,000 from the State Fiscal Recovery Fund of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
• The General Assembly set aside a total of $10,000,000 for the Bucks for Brains initiative at comprehensive universities; university-specific allocations are forthcoming.
• The budget adds $1,000,000 to the Kentucky Mesonet, bringing total state funding to $1,750,000 each year.

For more information, you can view the full budget report here.

I want to thank our leaders in the General Assembly for their extraordinary support of WKU and postsecondary education. I also want to thank Jennifer Breiwa Smith, WKU’s Executive Director of Government and External Relations, for her dedicated representation of WKU in Frankfort and tireless advocacy for our needs. Jennifer will provide a final update of the legislative session following final adjournment on April 14.

Best,

Timothy C. Caboni