Board of Regents approves FY17 Supplemental Budget Request
On Friday, December 10, the University of Minnesota Board of Regents approved a supplemental budget request that was submitted to the governor and legislature for fiscal year 2017. The request includes four items:
Health training restoration ($10.5 million recurring)
Restore funding for two critical health programs formerly financially supported by UCare:
- Family medicine clinical training, education, and research in Duluth, Mankato, Minneapolis, and St. Cloud.
- The Mobile Dental Clinic, a bus staffed by faculty and supervised students, which travels across our state providing preventive and primary dental care to underserved communities. The clinic has served over 12,000 Minnesotans and provided over 60,000 dental procedures.
Cyber security ($19 million one-time)
Upgrade the University's network to improve data protection systemwide for students, faculty, staff, and public users. New hardware and software will allow the University to meet exponentially growing technology needs.
Mining Innovation Minnesota ($3.6 million recurring)
Revitalize Minnesota's mining region through research coordinated with key stakeholders to maximize resource recovery, diversify our state's mineral opportunity portfolio to include higher value metallic products, and create technologies to reduce sulfate in our water.
Healthy Minnesota ($3.25 million recurring; $2.5 million one-time)
Improve access to quality health care across Minnesota:
- Invest in the Community University Health Care Clinic, which educates over 230 Academic Health Center students and residents per year in an innovative, interdisciplinary setting.
- Invest in the Rural Dentist Associate Program, which supports training sites throughout Minnesota. This request focuses on sites in Hibbing and Bemidji.
On Monday, December 14, President Kaler sent a letter detailing the request to Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Myron Frans.
Senator Scalze announces retirement
On Wednesday, December 9, Senator Bev Scalze (DFL) of Little Canada announced that she would not seek a second term. She joins Senator Dave Brown, Senator Barb Goodwin, Representative Ann Lenczewski, Senator Julianne Ortman, and Representative Kim Norton, who have already announced they will not seek re-election.