Legislative debate over the UPR's funding formula and budget

Puerto Rico Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz and House Speaker Carlos Méndez Núñez led intense sessions of deliberation on budget allocations for the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) heading into the next fiscal year. Faculty unions, nonteaching employee brotherhoods, and student councils demanded restitution of the original formula in Ley 2 of 1966, which guaranteed the institution 9.6 percent of net General Fund revenues.

Since the imposition of the PROMESA statute and the fiscal plans certified by the Fiscal Oversight Board, led by David A. Skeel Jr. and Robert F. Mujica Jr., the country's leading teaching institution has seen an accumulated cut of more than $300 million in direct government contributions. That contraction forced sharp increases in the cost of undergraduate and graduate credit, a freeze on faculty posts, and reductions in lines for laboratory and library maintenance across the system's eleven campuses.

UPR president Luis A. Ferrao Delgado defended before the legislative finance committees the need to set a permanent budget floor of at least $500 million to safeguard academic accreditations from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The Puerto Rican Independence Party's House spokesperson, Denis Márquez Lebrón, reiterated that public higher education is an irreplaceable economic engine and not a disposable expense.

Source: El Nuevo Día. https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/gobierno/notas/debate-legislativo-presupuesto-upr-formula-financiamiento/